Poulbot, it's not just the sweet universe of the kid from the Butte Montmartre. It is even less the “rough line” of the copies that we find today for sale on the quays, or on the Place du Tertre, as Claudine Chevrel, curator of the exhibition, is moved by it, “Francisque Poulbot, poster artist », Which opens tomorrow. “Poulbot was a great designer, with a very fine pencil stroke, and also a very generous man who marked the history of Montmartre. He is notably one of the founders of the Republic of Montmartre in the 1920s, still celebrated every year. “He had founded it to help the needy. At the end of each year, he also organized the Noël des petits Poulbot, a big show in favor of poor children, to which he invited his friends, Mistinguett,Joséphine Baker, the Fratellini ... ”, says Claudine Chevrel.
Children are inseparable from Poulbot's work. The “Poulbot kid”, embodied in his advertising posters, has today become a brand known throughout the world. But before working for the pub, in which he will make his fortune, the artist takes part in "the war of the pencils" during the First World War, by making patriotic posters in which he transposes the world of adults into the world of children. The Germans will remember him during the Occupation in World War II, placing him under house arrest and preventing him from drawing. Poulbot died in 1946 from an illness. Alone, and ruined.