Georges Villa. (Montmédy (Meuse), 1883 – Paris, 1965). Aux Lettres !! Original watercolour and ink on strong paper. Signed autograph : « souvenir reconnaissant. Hopital 2. Georges Villar, avril-mai 1915 ». Dim. 29 x 44,3 cm.
Georges Villa, cartoonist, caricaturist, engraver, lithographer and illustrator, trained at the Académie Julian and then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury, exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, where he was awarded a bronze medal and a silver medal. He also exhibited at the Salon de Nancy. He was a figure of Montmartre during the Roaring Twenties, known for his caricatures and portraits as well as his erotic drawings, whose realism was enhanced by the use of charcoal and pastel. The Musée de Montmartre has one of his pastels, À l’intérieur du Lapin Agile. He was a member of the Mortigny circle, founded by Dimitri d’Osnobichine in 1908, which brought together many artists and regulars of Parisian life, and which remained active until the 1950s. He also illustrated the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Anatole France and Théophile Gauthier.
In 1908, he accompanied a Russian archaeological mission to Egypt, then was invited to Russia by Grand Duke Vladimir, uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, to paint portraits of officers. This is where he was living when the Great War broke out. He then returned to France as a reserve officer; as a second lieutenant, he joined the 132nd Infantry Regiment, where he was wounded in November 1914. He then rejoined his unit at Les Éparges and was wounded again in April 1915 by shrapnel.
Aux Lettres !! recalls his hospitalisation, during one of the highlights of the wounded man’s day, when the mail arrives, announced by a trumpet that could be that of Fame, and distributed by a splendid Madelon to poor mutilated soldiers; she brings them roses of love, butterflies of remembrance, but also a few mournful black flies.
Wanting to continue fighting, Villa began training at the Military Aviation School in Chartres. After receiving his licence, he was assigned to a fighter squadron as a pilot officer and ended the war as a captain. He was the first painter in the Air Force.
His war diaries, published in 2022 by Edhisto under the title Au-dessus de la tranchée (Above the Trench), with a preface and annotations by Christian Wagner, make no mention of his months in the infantry, focusing instead entirely on his involvement in the air force.
Our caricature of mutilated brothers in arms is all the more valuable for it.
450 €