ArtistMinartz, Tony (Antoine Guillaume)

Artist Years1870-1944

Artist NationalityFrench

TitleLe Bal

Year1902

MediumPrint > Drypoint

DimensionsPlate: 5.4 X 7.7 inches

Accession NumberRC1549

NotesTony Minartz, pseudonym of Antoine Guillaume Minartz was a French painter, cartoonist, illustrator and engraver.

A self-taught painter, Tony Minartz began to make himself known in 1896 by exhibiting canvases at the Salon of the Société nationale des beaux-arts, then decorated in Paris the Théâtre Pompadour with panels painted for shows in the manner Grand-Guignol"Grand-Guignol", directed by L. Darthenay. In 1903, Henri Béraldi, with whom he worked, praised in La Revue de l'art ancienne et moderne, writing "that he is thirty years old", and that he benefited from the advice of Paul Renouard to train himself in the technique of etching. Béraldi added that his favorite subjects were "Paris in the evening, Paris at night, always". Minartz gave some remarkable etchings to La Revue de l'art ancienne et moderne until 1910: balls, café-concerts, Parisian in their most beautiful toilets, but also cafés-concerts, music halls, restaurants, large and small theatres, are the privileged decorations of his compositions.

It is thus until the First World War that Tony Minartz regularly exhibits at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts "on the theme of the spectacle: that of the street with its popular scenes, that of the night as well, of its actors and its spectators: artists, dancers, partygoers. No doubt he was well amused, carefree and fanciful, taking life on the bright side, all occupied with being the chronicler and the witness of a time when one knew how to live."

The spawning period of Tony Minartz seems to end in 1914. In addition to the SNBA Fair, Minartz exhibited in Paris at the Barthélémy Gallery (1903), the Salon des indépendants (1905, 1906) and the Devambez Gallery (1909) and received academic palms. He occasionally collaborated with illustrated periodicals such as L'Almanac des Sports (Ollendorff, 1899), or satirical such as Gil Blas and L'Assiette au beurre It also illustrates some musical scores and a number of books of bibliophile.

During the 1900s and 1910s, he worked for the fashion designer Jacques Doucet, performing drawings and watercolours of elegant and parades.

During the Belle Époque, as a watchful witness of Montmartre, he lived in Paris at 37, rue Pierre-Fontaine. In 1918 he participated in an exhibition for the benefit of the works of war and then retired permanently to Cannes to devote himself to painting. Françoise de Perthuis returned: "Drinking from the atmosphere of the capital, Tony Minartz left one day for the Côte d'Azur. The Riviera, between the two wars, is a whole world: flowering corsos, lively markets, beach or fishing scenes, casinos, fireworks, popular festivals, Tony Minartz will describe this world with a keen sense of observation, a nervous pencil and kidnapped, an astonishing control of colors even in these nocturnal scenes that are so difficult to make2."

On 13 December 1944, Tony Minartz "extended in total destitution, forgotten by all"
(source: wikipedia.org)