Charles Gir
French, 1883-1941
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Charles-Félix Girard, known as Charles Gir or Ch. Gir, was a French painter, sculptor, draughtsman, poster artist and caricaturist. He was born in Tours on November 1, 1883, and died in Bordeaux on March 22, 1941.
Born of the marriage of Félix André Girard (1853-?) and Denise Léonide Charlotte Gence (1862-1925), Charles Gir worked in a bookshop in Tours before cycling to Paris, where he attended the École Boulle and the École supérieure de dessin et de modelage Germain-Pilon. He soon began frequenting the Opéra Garnier with a daily assiduity that lasted seventeen years (where he met his wife Jeanne Fusier-Gir), becoming a very popular painter and caricaturist during the Belle Époque and into the 1920s.
Based at 17, Rue Catherine-de-La-Rochefoucauld in Paris's 9th arrondissement, he began to make a name for himself with theater posters; he also illustrated several literary works, including Edmond Rostand's Chantecler.
In 1900, he set up the “Atelier Charles Gir”, a workshop for graphic artists. He worked for L'Assiette au beurre and Paris-Journal, among other periodicals, and was probably behind the monthly illustrated magazine Comica (1908-1909).
He is the author of the three friezes adorning the lobby of the Les Roches Noires building in Trouville-sur-Mer, a luxury hotel that was sold off in apartment lots after the Second World War.
After a stay in Morocco in 1926, notably in Marrakech, which we know from the paintings and watercolors included in the painted work, Charles Gir acquired a studio in Grisy-les-Plâtres: “My parents bought this village farmhouse in 1929,” confirms the artist's son. My father immediately took possession of the stable, tripling its volume by removing the attics. He lit up this vast space by cutting out skylights in the roof to connect it to the sky, thus creating a nest for work, dreams and life. From there, in the 1930s, he drew and painted views of neighboring villages (the churches of Bréançon, Livilliers and Theuville), and his son recalls his frequent visits to Brittany: “He wore a Breton fisherman's jacket made by the seamstress of Saint-Guénolé from salmon-red sailcloth, according to the custom of this wild sea country. In my early childhood, we often went to the Pointe du Raz; painters loved the changing colors of Brittany, jostled by the violent wind. My father also loved the fishermen with their slow, measured gestures, and the women dressed in black with lace headdresses who clung to the moorland to find the sheep hidden in the heather and gorse. He was always drawing, in the dunes, on the rocks, at fairs, in the bistro”.
Charles Gir was also a sculptor, and was responsible for a Don Quichotte he had completed before his death in 1941, but which could not be delivered to its commissioner, Spain's pre-Civil War ruling family. A bronze version has been on display in Cergy since 1978. Gir also designed Giacomo Meyerbeer's commemorative monument in Spa, the musician having made several visits to this fashionable spa town.
On October 12, 1911, he married actress Jeanne Fusier-Gir (1885-1973), who played many roles in Sacha Guitry's repertoire and whose prolific filmography spans the period from 1909 to 1966. They had two children: a daughter, Françoise, and a son, François Gir (1920-2003), who was a film and television director. Charles, who died in hospital in Bordeaux on March 22, 1941, Jeanne and François are all buried in the Grisy-les-Plâtres cemetery, where they had a second home.