Draner

Draner, actually Jules Joseph Georges Renard (12 November 1833 in Liège – 1926 in Paris), was a Belgian painter, Illustrator and cartoonist. Living from 1861 in Paris, Draner worked as an illustrator for numerous famous newspapers and sketched late costumes for different famous theatrical houses and opera-houses.[1] He is also considered to be an early Belgian comics artist.[2]

Draner
Cent-garde, 1862 caricature by Draner.
Born	Jules Joseph Georges Renard (1833-11-12)12 November 1833 Liège, Belgium
Died	30 August 1926(1926-08-30) (aged 92) Paris, France
Nationality	Belgian
Known for	Caricature Illustration
Notable work	Au Bureau de l'Eclipse - Paris, c. 1870.
Movement	Modernism

Biography

Life

Jules Renard was born in 1833 in Liège, the son of a printer and bookseller who printed in 1850 the Almanac of Mathieu Lansberg.[3] Later he formed his name "Draner" as an anagram of his surname Renard, a name that he used all his life in all his drawings,[1] although he was also known as "Paf".[4] After leaving school, he worked as secretary in the administration of the Société des Mines et de Zinc de la Vieille Fonderies-Montagne, an enterprise of the zinc industry in his home town.[3] As an autodidact, he began drawing and creating his first caricatures on motives that he found in the everyday life of Liège and soon began working with local newspapers. Between 1852 and 1861, he worked for the Brussels paper Uylenspiegel, founded by Félicien Rops.[3]

In 1861, he moved to Paris, where the Société des Mines et de Zinc de la Vieille Fonderies-Montagne had a branch.[3] In the beginning of his Parisian years, he primarily caricatured military life in his drawings; between 1861 and 1864, he had already produced 136 colored lithographs on this topic, portraying himself as a military of different nationality in an ironic way.[3] He published these images in albums such as Types militaires de toutes les nations, Nouvelle vie militaire, and Le colonel Ramollot. From 1866, he worked as an illustrator for the satirical magazine Le Charivari,[5] where, in 1879, he succeeded Amédée de Noé, known as "Cham" (1818-1879),[4] as a regular illustrator. In addition, his amusing drawings appeared in magazines such as La Caricature,[6] L'Eclipse, Le Monde Classique, Paris-Comique, L'Illustration, Le Monde Illustré, Le journal amusant[5] and Petit Journal.[3]

From 1864 to 1893, Draner also designed costumes for theater and opera houses. His imaginative stage costumes were designed for performances at La Scala in Milan, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, the Théâtre des Galeries Saint-Hubert in Brussels, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, as well as the Parisian stages of the Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre de la Renaissance, Éden-Theatre or the Folies Bergère and including most of the works of Jacques Offenbach.[3] Draner died in Paris in 1926, at the age of 93,[1] and his drawings estate was then donated to the University of Liège.[3]

Works

• Maxime Aubray, L’album de la Colonelle Paris, E. Dentu.
• Maxime Aubray, Joyeuses histoires du mess et de la chambrée Le 145° régiment Paris, Librairie illustrée.
• Pierre Véron, L'art de vivre cent ans Paris, E. Dentu. (1884).
• Charles Leroy, Les fredaines du commandant Vermoulu Ernest Kolb.
• Adrien Huart, La nouvelle vie militaire Paris, Librairie illustrée.
• Au Bureau de l'Eclipse - Portfolio containing a collection of drawings (Paris, c. 1870)
  • Les Soldats de la République. L'Armée Française en campagne (31 plates)
  • Souvenirs du Siège de Paris. Les Défenseurs de la Capitale (31 plates)
  • Paris assiégé. Scènes de la vie parisienne pendant le siège (31 plates)
• Types Militaires: Galerie Militaire de Toutes les Nations (Paris, Lemercier et Cie, c. 1862-1871)
• Types militaires réédition octobre 2007 C. Hérissey, Janzé, Ille-et-Vilaine. ISBN 978-2-914417-32-7
• Souvenirs de l’Exposition de 1867 Types pris sur nature par Draner Dusacq et Cie.

Gallery

Portraits of actors in their costumes by Draner

• 
  Les braconniers
  Jacques Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Berthelier (Lastécouères - 1873)
• 
  Les braconniers
  Jacques Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Dupuis (Marcassou - 1873)
• 
  La vie parisienne
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe - 1866.
• 
  La vie parisienne
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe - 1866.
• 
  La vie parisienne
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe - 1866.
• 
  La vie parisienne
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe - 1866.
• 
  La vie parisienne
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe - 1866.
• 
  La princesse de Trébizondebr
  Nuitter, Tréfeu and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Edouard Georges (Sapradrap - 1869)
• 
  Geneviève de Barbant
  Crémieux, Tréfeu and Offenbach's magic - 1875.
• 
  Le docteur Ox. Gille
  Mortier, Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Baron in the role of Niklausse - 1877.
• 
  Les Brigands
  Jacques Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Lanjallay (Duke of Mantova - 1869).
• 
  La boulangère a des écus
  Meilhac, Halévy and Offenbach's opéra-bouffe: Dupuis (Bernadille - 1875)

References

1. Brown. "The Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection: Types Militaires Par Draner". Brown University Library. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
2. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/d/draner.htm
3. Université de Liège. "DRANER, Jules RENARD dit (Liège, 1833 - Paris, 1926)". Draner - Types militaires. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
4. Childs, Elizabeth C. (2004). Daumier and exoticism: satirizing the French and the foreign. Peter Lang Publishing. pp. 26–27. ISBN 0-8204-6945-9.
5. Antoine Masson, Kevin O'Connor (2007). Representations of justice. Peter Lang. p. 46. ISBN 90-5201-349-7.
6. Hamerton, Philip Gilbert (1892). The present state of the fine arts in France. University of Michigan Library. p. 55. OCLC 1351898.

Attribution

• This article is based on the translation of the corresponding article of the French Wikipedia. A list of contributors can be found there at the History section.

External links

• Media related to Draner at Wikimedia Commons
• Biografie of Draner at the University of Liège website