Jean Girard

JEAN GIRARD (France, 1902- 1993).
"Still life".
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 33 x 46,5 cm; 36 x 50 m (frame).
In this still life can be seen on the table catalog "The Italian Futurist painters" which was published by Galerie Bernheim Jeune in 1912.
Jean Girard, who attended the School of Decorative Arts in Paris, began a career as a painter and studied French regional costumes. During a study trip to Morocco in 1934, he took up photography with an interest in traditional dress. With the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he stayed there in 1935 and 1936, photographed men and women from different communities and carefully documented their ceremonial costumes. Alongside his photographs, he filmed, drew and took numerous notes, which introduced him to the then very active milieu of French ethnology. In 1937, his work was exhibited at the Musée de la France d'Outre-Mer, in the Palais de la Porte Dorée, inaugurated in 1931 during the Colonial Exposition. It features photographs, a selection of paintings, as well as some costumes and jewelry. He also collaborated with the Musée de l'Homme, to which he offered five hundred and fifty documented photographs, as well as clothing. In 1942 he published Costumes et type du Maroc, a work that reproduces his drawings enhanced with watercolor and remains an essential reference on traditional Moroccan clothing. His work irreplaceably documents Jewish culture in Morocco, and in particular women's costumes and ornaments, whose repertoire is sometimes shared with that of Muslim women.