Charles Martin was born in the Southern French coastal town of Montpellier in 1884 and in
his teens he studied art there, before leaving for Paris to study at the Academie Julian,
and later the School of Fine Arts.
The earliest verified example of his work I found is this nude figure from an unknown
magazine, published in 1906, and created in a style with significant echoes of the work
of Henri De Toulouse Lautrec.
A couple of years later, when he was 24 years old, examples of Martin's more typical modernist
humorous work began to appear regularly in the pages of the popular magazine Le Sourire.
He wasn't the only illustrator pursuing this linear graphic approach at the time, but his
work was more radically stylised than most, with formal line work of uniform weight and
flat non-representational colours.
And they were certainly among the earliest examples of their kind to be published in
France, or anywhere else, for that matter.
I've been unable to find definitive information as to how the colour was applied but it's
quite likely that it was added at printing to Martin's monochrome originals as there's
evidence of some less than accurate colour registration.
But however they were reproduced virtually all these illustrations featured comical graphic
representations of the French middle class.and they were an exceptionally popular contribution
to the magazine for several years.
As the second decade of the century began he seems to have appeared less in Le Sourire
and with increasing frequency in La Vie Parisienne, Paris's most sexually liberated publication.
And this magazine's pronounced bias towards frivolous erotica was a particularly good
fit for Martin's own outlook and visual inclinations, little of which had been more than hinted
at in his work at Le Sourire.
The evidence of this work indicates that he was rapidly refining his linear approach,
and not only did he begin using a finer line of uniform weight but was becoming increasing
able to be considerably more expressive in its application.
And it doesn't appear to have concerned him that he was, like all contributors to la Vie,
limited to 2 colours at best.
Demand for Martin's illustrations was growing rapidly at this time, and other magazines
such as Fantasio also began to commission him on a regular basis, and he created some
equally arresting pages for them also using similarly limited colour palettes.
Around the same time he was also having quite a few illustrations published in fashion magazines
such as the immensely influential La Gazette du Bon Ton.
For this fashion work he naturally enough played down both the humour and sexually explicit
content.
These illustrations were reproduced in full colour but unlike the lithographic printing
of Le Sourire and La Vie Parisienne, all these images were printed using the pochoir stencil
method, so Martin would only have supplied the original line drawings.
These were then coloured on an assembly line basis to his supplied colour guides.
In some cases the line work itself was first printed in a colour other than the expected
black.
But all his work, however it was reproduced, was consistently modern, linear and flat and
for the time daringly - but never self consciously - geometric.
He would have been 30 years old when the great War began in 1914, and although he somehow
continued to create illustrations for magazines throughout the conflict, he did actually fight
in the army for several years.
In 1917, with the war still raging he published many images inspired by the conflict and most
significantly he created a collection titled Under the Flower Pots, a reference to the
French troops' helmets.
This was a volume of Martin's drawings, reproduced as 30 etchings which he had worked on from
1914 onwards.
Some of these images were quite frivolous but others were anything but.
Following the end of the war it was back to business as usual for Martin and he resumed
his professional associations with all his pre-war clients, and created some particularly
stylish limited colour palette images for Fantasio.
And alongside yet more pochoir fashion illustration he returned to his prominent position at la
Vie Parisienne and continued to produce lighthearted and decorative erotica which celebrated and
reflected the welcome return of more frivolous and hedonistic behaviour during what the French
called Les Années Folles.
Theres also some evidence of him trying his hand with mixed results at poster work including
this particularly poor taste example for bicycles featuring an amputee war veteran.
Most significantly for his reputation it was his work on the book Sports et divertissements,
published in 1923, which gained him an even greater following.
This was a collector's item published to accompany a series of piano pieces by the highly respected
French composer Erik Satie.
And Martin's aesthetically considered drawings were published as his fashion work had been
as pochoir prints.
These immaculately executed and for Martin quite sexually innocent fine line drawings
and the tasteful palette of flat transparent colour made for a series which perfectly evoked
wealthy Paris at play during this carefree decade.
Only 900 copies of this portfolio were printed and they sold out immediately to well-heeled
collectors . He was remarkably prolific at this time and
continued to appear regularly in magazines and even added the women's magazine Femina
to his list of clients.
In the following year he collaborated with the highly respected writer and film maker
Jean Cocteau on another remarkable creative collaboration.
This was a series of prints which celebrated the varied professions involved in the publishing
industry.
And despite the somewhat esoteric nature of the subject matter this series, combining
etched line and pochoir colour, could well be considered as works of art, such was their
semi-abstracted, superbly composed nature.
in what context they were published I have been unable to find out, but they were an
aesthetically triumphant series.
In 1925 Charles Martin’s own book Mascarades et Amusettes was published, and the extreme
nature of this collection of graphic and some might say obscene depictions of sexual acts
demands that I censor the images due to Youtube's guidelines for such material.
Despite their controversial subject matter - or maybe because of it - this is now among
the rarest and most sought after collections of his work.
Moving on to far safer territory his illustrated edition of L'Illusion Heroique de Tito Bassi
, written by Henri de Régnier was also published in 1925.
The colour images for this story were created as etchings by Martin, giving them a distinctive
grainy linear appeal.
Some were typically character-based and being Martin he had to include the occasional exposed
breast, but the work attracted no accusations of pornographic content, and there were also
some particularly impressive scenic images which made great use of large atmospheric
backgrounds.
In 1926 he illustrated the book Lettres Persanes, originally written by the Baron de Montesquieu
in 1721 and although evidence is hard to come by this sketch and subsequent finished art
for one of the illustrations gives a rare and revealing insight into the relationship
between his developmental and completed images.
In 1927 his illustrations for the book Monseigneur Le Vin written by Louis Forest were published,
and this amusing look at wine and those who consume it was a popular success across Europe,
translated into several languages.
In many ways these comedic line and flat colour illustrations were a significant achievement
in terms of demonstrating just how expressive his highly controlled fine line work could
be.
The close ups of male figures sniffing corks and other wine related activities constitute
particularly memorable light social satire.
A year later he returned to literature with his illustrated edition of Le Mariage de Don
Quichotte by Paul Jean Toulet, featuring a number of particularly sensitively executed
pale colour narrative images by Martin, all of which were set within tasteful oval frames.
Among other commissions in the later 1920s he also produced a visually delightful and
highly decorative series of ink and watercolour images with a theatrical theme which was published
in Femina magazine.
In 1930 Martin illustrated 2 volumes of the Contes de la Fontaine with a series of decidedly
adult colour illustrations.
Needless to say this collection was not aimed at children, and was some way distant from
the Similarly titled Fables de la Fontaine, a verse edition of Aesop's fables.
And although not entirely pornographic this book too would have struggled to be published
anywhere other than Paris, given censorship and public decency laws elsewhere.
In 1934 an edition of the story of Manon Lescaut, originally written in 1731 by Antoine François
Prévost was published.
And the series of engrossing aesthetically pleasing illustrations he created for this
book would be the last to be published in his lifetime, Because that was also the year
in which Martin died from an unrecorded cause in Paris
in 1934 when he was only 50 years old.
a series of his erotic female figure drawings wae published posthumously in Le Sourire,
and they bear testament to his prowess as a draughtsman of significant expressiveness.
Whether they were originally created as art rather than illustration I don't know.
And although most countries can boast their own examples of similarly early modernists
among their illustrators I personally would struggle to think of an example of anyone
from France or anywhere else who did it with the same level of sheer aesthetic beauty,
delicacy and distinction as Charles Martin.