Modern Print Monday: André Durenceau

Pochoir (stencil print) from Inspirations, 1928

Although born in Auray, France, Durenceau's art career was in the United States, where he moved in the 1923. Virginia Gardner Troy in The Modernist Textile: Europe And America characterizes him as a French textile designer.

He published a book of plates Inspirations, using the pochoir technique, which is French for stencil.

Each plate was in essence an original print with vibrant color.

Poster for the New York World's Fair in 1939

where Durenceau painted murals.

Durenceau's color influenced technicolor movies, illustration, murals and the whole idea of

a vivid streamline style of the 1930s and '40s.

Queen Elizabeth by Durenceau in the 1950s

The New York Public Library has an online copy of Inspirations. Click here:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?word=14073&s=1&notword=&f=13&sScope=Name&sLabel=Durenceau%2C%20Andr%C3%A9