ROUVEYRE, André. ~ Milliardaires Americains. [Paris, c. 1910-20].
Drawing, ink on paper (440 × 335 mm), laid to a heavier sheet. Signed ‘A.R.’ at foot. Quite browned, minimal fraying (mainly to right-hand edge) slightly affecting ink border, contemporary blue pencil note top left.
Contemporary caricature portraits of the great American millionaires Carnegie, Pierpont-Morgan, Gordon-Bennett, Harjes, Frick and Depew. The drawing was probably intended for reduction and publication in an (unidentified) journal. André Rouveyre (1879-1962) was immensely prolific as a caricaturist and maintained friendships and correspondence with important figures such as Apollinaire and Matisse (having met the latter as joint students of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau). His drawings show a mixture of early Minimalism (reminiscent of Matisse) with Expressionism. The caricatural nature of his work was aptly described by Aldous Huxley in the novel Crome Yellow (1921) when a character encounters his own unflattering portrait: ‘A mute, inglorious Rouveyre appeared in every one of those cruelly clear lines.’