Printmaker of Montmartre
Eugène Delâtre was a printmaker as well as a printer, specializing in small prints that captured the picturesque character of Montmartre. Delâtre knew the district intimately: the hill with its distinctive narrow streets, windmills and vegetable gardens provided him with an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
Modern Paris was imposing itself at a rapid rate, but there is no sign of that in Delâtre’s prints. It is as if he wanted to capture the rural life of Montmartre before it disappeared.
Eugène Delâtre, Montmartre from the journal L'Artiste (tome 1 1886), 1886
Eugène Delâtre, Impasse Trainée, Montmartre, 1900
Experiments with colour
Delâtre experimented a great deal as a printmaker. Inspired by the rise of colour lithography, he was one of the first to try his hand at colour etching and did so very successfully.
It is a difficult technique, but one that lent itself perfectly to an experienced printmaker-printer like Delâtre, who went on to make around 200 colour etchings. He also helped other artists to produce prints of this kind in his studio.
Eugène Delâtre, On the Boulevards (Sur les boulevards), 1893
Further reading
- Hélène Koehl, Nicholas-Henri Zmelty, Impressions à Montmartre. Eugène Delâtre et Alfredo Müller, Milan 2013
- Phillip Dennis Cate, Marianne Grivel, From Pissarro to Picasso: color etching in France. Works from the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, 1992
- Phillip Dennis Cate, Patricia Eckert Boyer, L’Estampe originale. Artistic Printmaking in France 1893-1895, Zwolle 1991