Jean Boullet
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"After the highly promoted but vastly inferior 1976 remake of King Kong, Elliot Stein wrote a nostalgic fan homage essay to King Kong called "My Life with Kong" in Rolling Stone magazine. Stein was one of the most famous of the "Kongophiles" along with Forrest J. Ackerman and Jean Boullet. In the essay Stein talks about the contexts in which he has seen King Kong during his life, including in the 1930s in New York picture palaces like Radio City Music Hall, and the RKO Roxy and in Paris with Jean Boullet in the 1950s."--Sholem Stein |
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Jean Boullet (1921 - 1970) was a French artist, writer and film critic. As a draughtsman he worked in the homoerotic style of Jean Cocteau and Tom of Finland. He wrote for Midi Minuit Fantastique, Cinéma and Bizarre. He was found dead hanging from a tree in Algeria in 1970.
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Overview
Jean Boullet born December 12, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine and died in Algeria in Annaba on November 2, 1970, is a French painter, draftsman, illustrator, film critic and writer.
Biography
Jean Boullet was the son of a cat fur trader on the Avenue d'Italie, Henri Boullet, who committed suicide by hanging. In his very catholic childhood, he spent his summers in Isdes, in a house that he would keep. He began to paint in 1942, mainly portraits. He made a name for himself as a draftsman and illustrator in Saint-Germain-des-Prés immediately after the war. He illustrated both a book by Daniel-Rops, the Catholic writer (This face that looks at us), and the sulphurous work - banned by censorship - by Boris Vian, I will go to spit on your graves, texts of Edgar Poe, Raymond Asso, poems by Villon, Verlaine. In 1948, he was the author of the sets for the play J'irai cracher sur vos graves which Boris Vian took from his homonymous novel and which he signed with his real name4.
Jean Boullet is also a film critic who venerates the fantastic and horror films that can be seen at the Midi-Minuit cinema on the Grands Boulevards. To show the even rarer films that he loves, he set up a private film club in his house on rue Bobillot: the Société des Amis de Bram Stoker. He will also be with Michel Caen, Alain Le Bris and Jean-Claude Romer, the co-founder of the film review Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962-1971). This magazine was published by Éric Losfeld. Midi Minuit Fantastique was dedicated to fantasy, horror and science fiction films5. Jean Boullet retired from writing in 1966.
Fundamentally libertarian, anticlerical, enemy of established orders and personally launched into a frantic quest for the bizarre and the forbidden, Jean Boullet is also passionate about many other themes: sexology, illusionism, magic, demonology, popular mythology… In December 1965, he opened a bookshop, Le Kiosque, at 79, rue du Château, specializing in these themes and in collectible comics. Crippled with debts, he closed shop at the beginning of 1969, and in August, he moved to Algeria, to Ouargla to run a bookstore there.
On several occasions he traveled to the Maghreb, notably to Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, but also to Senegal and Sudan, from where he brought back many drawings.
During the summer of 1970, he decided to leave Ouargla for the south, and undertake a trip, while keeping his bookstore. During one of the stages of this trip, at the end of December, he was discovered in Tébessa, south of Constantine, according to the Algerian police report, hanging from a tree. According to the confidences of the writer Roger Peyrefitte, Jean Boullet was stabbed to death.
His workshop was dispersed on April 23, 1971 in Paris, by Guy Loudmer, Hervé Poulain and Pierre Cornette de Saint Cyr.
Homoeroticism
Openly homosexual, proclaiming himself "painter of male beauty", he multiplied the drawings or paintings of a homoerotic aesthetic somewhat inspired by that of Jean Cocteau.
Jean Boullet, during his life, met the Tout-Paris whose names were then: Édith Piaf, Michel Déon, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Jean Cocteau, Juliette Gréco, Jacques Chazot, Piéral, Sacha Guitry , Marcel Carné, Roland Lesaffre, Kenneth Anger, Félix Labisse, Lise Deharme, Michel Laclos, Elliott Stein, and Jacques Courtois.
He was also a friend of Max Jacob. A portrait in Indian ink made by him in 1943 representing the Breton poet wearing the yellow star is now preserved and presented at the Museum of Fine Arts in Quimper.
References
Bibliographie
Livres illustrés par Jean Boullet
- Tapis volant, 33 dessins sur un thème personnel, prologue de Jean Cocteau s.l., s.n., 1945. Puis chez Flammarion. Selon François Sentein, dans son livre Minutes d'une autre année, 1945, le modèle de l'artiste pour les dessins de ce livre serait Daniel Filipacchi
- Mythologie plaquette h.c.
- Daniel-Rops, Ce visage qui nous regarde, avec 20 dessins de Jean Boullet, Paris, La Mie de Pain, 1947, 12 pages et 20 planches.
- La Belle et la Bête de MTemplate:Me Leprince de Beaumont . Un frontispice. Aux Œuvres française; collection Point d'Orgue.
- Le Diable au corps de Raymond Radiguet, 10 dessins. Aux éditions du Trois-Mâts.
- ""L'épitaphe Villon", de François Villon " poésie. Préface de Guy Laflotte Aux deux menteurs. Paris.
- "D'Icare aux soucoupes volantes " avec Guy Laflotte. Casablanca . 1953. Imprimé à Paris
- Gilles de Rays de Roland Villeneuve ; préface de MTemplate:E Maurice Garçon
- Raymond Asso, Évangiles, dessins de Jean Boullet, Paris, éditions du Trois-Mâts.
- Boris Vian, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes, 15 dessins, éditions du Scorpion, 1947.
- Barnum's digest , 10 monstres fabriqués par Jean Boullet et traduits de l'américain par Boris Vian, Paris, Aux deux menteurs, s.d. (1948).
- Cafard gris
- Antinoüs, Nice, s.n., 1954.
- Dracula, 12 dessins pour illustrer, Paris, Aux deux menteurs, s.d.
- Évangiles, Paris, s.n., 1947.
- Le Truc de la corde , Paris, s.n., 1953.
- Les Beaux Gars , Nice, s.n., 1951 (tiré à 150 exemplaires).
- Métamorphoses , Paris, Toutain, 1951.
- Œdipe , Paris, éditions du Scorpion, 1947.
- Œdipe , seconde édition, Terrain Vague (Éric Losfeld), 1958.
- Symbolisme sexuel , Texte de Jean Boullet. Bibliothèque internationale d'érotologie, Paris, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1961.
- « Les Monstres », revue Bizarre n° 17-18 (2Template:E série), préface de Paul Gilson, Paris, J.J. Pauvert, 1961.
- Le Mari, la femme et l'amant [texte imprimé] : [suivi de] ; Scènes choisies : Une lettre bien tapée; Je sais que tu es dans la salle. De Sacha Guitry, / Raoul Solar / 1953
- Edgar Allan Poe 20 dessins. Chez Jacques Dinet 6 rue de Beaunes
- Deburau de Sacha Guitry 13 dessins. Éditions Raoul Solar.
- Monsieur Thiers de Sacha Guitry Illustrations. Éditions Raoul Solar.
- Le Comédien de Sacha Guitry Frontispice. Éditions L'Ancre d'Or.
- « La Mandragore » [Texte imprimé] [s.n] / 1960 in revue Aesculape
- Les Velus (hommes, chiens, femmes à barbe) [s.n.] / s.d
- Feux vifs et flammes mortes pour un astre éteint de Michel Beaugency, préface de Jean Cocteau / Presses du livre français / 1953
Des dessins étaient en préparation pour des éditions de Alice au Pays des Merveilles; Le Songe d'une Nuit d'été de Shakespeare; Münchhausen; Les Contes de Perrault; Les Fables de La Fontaine; Notre-Dame de Paris de Victor Hugo; La Divine Comédie de Dante; La Vie des Saints, La Bible; Les Pensées de Pascal...
See also
