George Barbier: Art Deco Initiator and LGBTQ+ Illustrator
A look into the fashions and lifestyles of 1920s Paris
Art Deco Great, George Barbier, was born on the 16th of October, 1882, in Nantes, France.
He held his first exhibition in 1911, at the age of 29, and raging success soon followed.
His talent saw him being commissioned to design costumes for stage productions, as well as book illustrations. He also illustrated commercially for companies such as Cartier and Elizabeth Arden.
Barbier also designed jewellery, glass, and wallpapers and wrote for French magazine Gazette du Bon Ton. In the 1920s, he worked with famous French artist Erté to design costumes and sets for the Parisian cabaret hall, the Folies Bergère.
Barbier led a group of artists from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. Known for their fashionable and extravagant style, they were nicknamed “The Knights of the Bracelet”. This group of illustrators and artists helped to form the aesthetic of the Art Deco period.
He reportedly loved the art of classical antiquity. Barnebys.co.uk claims that female figures in Barbier’s artworks were inspired by his time studying Classical artefacts at the Louvre. According to one source, he may have had a particular affinity for Etruscan art.
His illustrations are wonderful examples of 1920s fashion but there is often more to the scenes than just an admiration for costume. Many of Barbier’s works depict intimacy between women. Some merely offer a Sapphic suggestion whereas others are unmistakable in their display of sexual affection between women. The women themselves display the more ‘boyish’ shape that was popular in the 1920s flapper girl era and many characters in his works cut an androgynous figure. Think short hair and tailored suits with pink rosy cheeks and red lips.
The piece named L’Aveau difficile, seen above, is reminiscent of a marriage proposal and the title, loosely translated to “the difficult confession” suggests even more that there could be a romantic backstory to these women.
Barbier’s contemporary, Pierre Louÿs, was a French poet who most famously wrote Songs of Bilitis, a pseudotranslation of lesbian poems by an imagined peer of Sappho, the famed Archaic Greek poet known today for her possible romantic relationships with women. Barbier illustrated the scenes in these poems, like the one above, clearly influenced by the ancient art he enjoyed.
Not much is known about Barbier’s own life, perhaps intentionally so, but he is known to have run in circles with other homosexual artists in Paris. Paris during the 1920s was known to be an increasingly liberal place in which queer people could visit the gay dance halls of Montmarte, where women wore tuxedos and men wore dresses.
Barbier died in 1932 and his name faded into obscurity for a long time after. Similarly to my last article on the illustrator Ida Outhwaite, Barbier has not been well recognised in the annals of art history. His ultra-feminine work has been overshadowed by more masculine art themes like cubism, which was popular around the same time.
For those who care to look, however, his work will continue to be a beautiful reference point for early 20th-century fashion and historical evidence for the booming queer subculture of inter-war Paris.
References
George Bariber — 21 artworks — illustration. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikiart: https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-barbier
KS. (2016, April 24). George Barbier: Fashioning the Queer Identity. Retrieved from MA FASHION BLOG 2016 Fashioning New Ideas: https://fs8003w16amd01.blog.torontomu.ca/2016/04/24/george-barbier-fashioning-the-queer-identity/
McQueen, P. (2020, April 23). Between the Wars, Paris Was the City of Lesbian Love. Retrieved from theculturetrip.com: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/paris/articles/gay-paris-20th-century-lesbian-culture-in-the-city-of-love/
Sweet, H. (2022, June 14). Illustrating Fashion in 1920s Paris: The Work of Georges Barbier. Retrieved from Barnebys.co.uk: https://www.barnebys.co.uk/blog/illustrating-fashion-in-1920s-paris-the-work-of-georges-barbier
