RENE GRUARU

Hi World! Warm Welcome to my Blog!

Last week, my blog was all about David Downton who worked on wide varieties of projects (freelance illustrators) then became a famous-well known illustrator afterwards. And this week, it will be a fashion illustrator artist among poster artists.

Let's check it out!

Among poster artists, only a few had a career as long and prolific as rene Gruau's. He began his career  from the 1920s to the year of his death in 2004 and he never ceased to draw and work, leaving an oeuvre of ''chic'' posters encompassing the best of the old world's fashion style. He was well known because of his mother introduction. She introduced him to painters and fashion magazine editors who encouraged him to pursue his craft, afterwards, he already had a promising career as a fashion illustrator awaiting him at 15.

Grau was a man of the world and of many skills : an illustrator and a poster artist, he also sold paintings, designed costumes and stage sets, and even created his own collection of clothing in 1948-49. His art is a timeless expression of style, elegance and sophistication. And he is rightly acclaimed as the greatest fashion artist of the last century, his name synonymous with the story of high fashion, and particularly the story of parisian creativity through the second half of the 20th century - the glory years of haute Courture and its related world of luxury.

He worked with the most brilliant fashion designers such as Dior, Givenchy and Lanvin; high class music-halls such as Moulin Rouge and the Lido; and the great magazines, among them Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Flair, and Elle.

Here are his works!

Rene Gruau was a close friend of Christian Dior and his illustrations for Dior perfumes and haute Courture dresses capture the elegance of this famous fashion house. And as for the poster's design itself, he used the general three colors : black, white, and red, which defined Gruau's style (his use of colours). He used to use black and white in his debut drawing for newspaper and magazines ( drawing in black - using the white of the paper as a colour). Then he added red, which is the colour our eye perceives the most rapidly, an undeniable advantage for advertisement.

La ligne is the one brush stroke that defines an image, gives it its movement, its structure, and style. In Rouge Baiser for example, it's the delicate profile of the woman : one single line encapsulating all the felinity and refinement of a red lipstick.

By using high angles, low angels and negative space, he created images that naturally attracted the eye. Let's put an example like for Ortalion stockings, he draws a beautiful woman, looking down at the viewer from almost outside of the poster, playful daring him to look up her dress and attracting his attention to her log legs, wrapped in bright red stockings. The diagonal created by the model's legs directed the eye both to the pro cut and its name.