Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953

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French-born, naturalized English artist, illustrator, and composer.

From the description of Edmund Dulac Collection, 1818, 1889-1948. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 122625030

Born in Toulouse, France, on 22 October 1882, Edmond Dulac was the only child of Pierre Henri Aristide Dulac and Marie Catherine Pauline Rieu. The boy grew up in a comfortable petit bourgeois home. Educated at the Lycée de Toulouse, Dulac showed an early introversion and talent for drawing. By age sixteen he was able to render professional art nouveau work. After studying law at the University of Toulouse for two years, Dulac enrolled full time at the École des Beaux Arts in 1900. There he roomed with close friend and fellow student Émile Rixens. In 1903 Dulac won a scholarship to the Académie Julien in Paris. His December 1903 marriage to Alice May de Marini, an American thirteen years his senior, quickly dissolved and by 1904 he had left for England to start his artistic career. Enamored of British culture, he changed the spelling of his first name to Edmund.

Dulac was an immediate success in England. He joined the London Sketch Club soon after his arrival and later St. John's Art Club. His first commission was the illustration of Jane Eyre, a quintessentially British project with which he was entrusted at the age of twenty-two. In April 1911 he married Elsa Arnalice Bignardi, a shy, graceful girl of Italian and German descent.

Dulac is best known as an illustrator of gift books and children's books. His favorite medium was watercolor. From 1890 to 1920, British book illustration was preeminent and Dulac's career flourished. He also collaborated with his friends W. B. Yeats and Sir Thomas Beecham on various theater projects. In 1920 he composed music for a production of Yeats's At the Hawk's Well . Yeats, Dulac, and Ezra Pound staged Japanese Nō plays, with Dulac designing costumes, sets, and makeup and composing music.

The hardships of World War I were still keenly felt by 1920, a year which signaled the death of the gift book and the start of Dulac's financial insecurity. In the same year The Outlook stopped running Dulac's cartoon drawings, which had been his only steady source of income. Though he managed on income from portraits and frequent commissions for American Weekly covers and postage stamps, money was always to be a concern. In August 1923 Dulac and Elsa separated, Dulac complaining that she was unable to challenge him intellectually. Close friend Helen de Vere Beauclerk apparently was his equal in this respect, however, and she moved in within the year. She was to be Dulac's companion until his death.

Yeats dedicated The Winding Stair to Dulac in 1933. In 1937 Dulac collaborated with Yeats on the BBC radio program, My Own Poetry . Yeats selected seven of his own poems, five to be spoken and two to be sung, with Dulac composing music for the songs, accompaniment for the spoken poems, and interludes between. Partly owing to the intervention of the producer in the choice of performers, the performance did not come up to either man's expectations, with Yeats feeling that the singing style and accompaniment were not true to his vision and Dulac feeling that the two sung pieces were the only bright spots in a performance that Yeats had sabotaged in rehearsal. Hostilities flared briefly but were soon smoothed over. Yeats died on 28 January 1939 and was buried in France; when his body was reinterred in his native Ireland after the war, Dulac designed the memorial for his friend's former resting place in Roquebrune.

By World War II, Dulac had become the leading authority on postage stamp design. When occupied France wanted to unify its colonies against Germany by issuing stamps with the Cross of Lorraine, this project naturally fell to an enthusiastic Dulac. The project was commissioned by Charles de Gaulle, who travelled to Britain to discuss the matter. Dulac's wartime work culiminated in the Victory stamp for France, using Léa Rixens, Émile Rixens's widow, as the model for Marianne de Londres. For once he used the French spelling of his name in his signature: Edmond Dulac.

At the close of his career, Dulac returned to illustrating children's books with the same perfectionism that had characterized the rest of his work. He was in the middle of one such project when he had his third heart attack and died 25 May 1953, at the age of seventy.

From the guide to the Edmund Dulac Collection TXRC03-A18., 1882-1953, 1818, 1889-1948, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865-1939. William Butler Yeats Collection, 1872-1970. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
referencedIn Bottomley, Gordon, 1874-1948. Constable Correspondence, 1918-1929. Temple University Libraries, Paley Library
referencedIn Sir William Rothenstein correspondence and other papers, 1887-1957. Houghton Library
creatorOf Martin Birnbaum papers Archives of American Art
referencedIn Howard D. Rothschild collection on, Ballets Russes, of Serge Diaghilev, 1909-1956 (inclusive), 1909-1914 (bulk). Harvard Theater Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University
creatorOf Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953. Letter : to Laurence Housman, 1907 Dec. 28. Bryn Mawr College, Mariam Coffin Canaday Library
creatorOf Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965. Papers of Thomas Stearns Eliot [manuscript] 1918-51. University of Virginia. Library
creatorOf Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965. Frederick D. Forsch Collection of Sir Winston Churchill, 1886-1965. Dartmouth College Library
referencedIn Oscar Wilde and his Literary Circle Collection: Correspondence, 1819, 1849-1957, 1962 William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA
creatorOf Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953. Edmund Dulac Collection, 1818, 1889-1948. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
referencedIn Dulac, E. : [miscellaneous ephemeral material]. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library
creatorOf Edmund Dulac Collection TXRC03-A18., 1882-1953, 1818, 1889-1948 Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
creatorOf Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953. Artist file : miscellaneous uncataloged material. Baltimore Museum of Art Library & Archives
referencedIn William Butler Yeats Collection TXRC02-A7., 1872-1970 Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
creatorOf Dulac, Edmund, 1882-1953. Artist file. Brooklyn Museum Libraries & Archives
creatorOf Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972. Letters to Edmund Dulac [manuscript], 1915-1953. University of Virginia. Library
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Birnbaum, Martin, 1878-1970. person
associatedWith Bottomley, Gordon, 1874-1948. person
associatedWith Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965. person
associatedWith Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965. person
associatedWith Housman, Laurence, 1865-1959. person
associatedWith Howard D. Rothschild. person
associatedWith Pound, Ezra, 1885-1972. person
correspondedWith Rothenstein, William, Sir, 1872-1945 person
associatedWith Sheringham, Sibyl. person
associatedWith Sheringham, Sibyl. person
associatedWith William Andrews Clark Memorial Library corporateBody
associatedWith Yeats, William Butler, 1865-1939 person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Subject
Commercial art
Culture diffusion
Illustration of books
Nō plays
Piano music
Sheringham, Sibyl
Occupation
Activity

Person

Birth 1882-10-22

Death 1953-05-25

Britons

English,

French

Information

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