Roger Boutet de Monvel (4 December 1879 – 25 December 1951)[1] was a French writer of historical studies and magazine articles on fashion and other topics.
Roger Boutet de Monvel | |
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Born | (1879-12-04)4 December 1879 Paris (France) |
Died | 25 December 1951(1951-12-25) (aged 72) Paris (France) |
Nationality | French |
Occupation | Writer |
Born in the 4th arrondissement of Paris,[1] Roger Boutet de Monvel was the oldest son of Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850–1913), a painter and illustrator of children's books.[2] His brother was Bernard was also an artist.[2] He was raised in Paris and in Nemours, where his maternal grandparents owned a house.[3]: 34–35 He often served as a model for his father; for example, his silhouette appears in his father's illustrations for Anatole France's Nos enfants, which also has an entire chapter about him.[3]: 33
After he finished his education, Boutet de Monvel took a position as secretary to the director of the Imprimerie nationale.[2] He began publishing articles in the early 1900s, at first usually in collaboration with his father or brother.[3]: 75 His first major work, a historical study entitled Les variétés (The Variety Shows), was published in 1905 by Plon, which would remain his publisher for most of his career.[2] Later historical studies took as their themes the upper social classes of France, the life of St. Francis of Assisi, and the writers Lord Byron and Miguel de Cervantes.[2]
In 1911, he took a job at the Carnavalet Museum in conservation.[2]
He joined the armed forces during the First World War but was discharged early on due to a leg injury.[2] Beginning in 1917, he published several books with war-related themes, including Carnet d'un permissionnaire (Notebook from a Soldier on Leave, 1917), Le bon anglais (The Good Englishman, 1918) and Nos frères d'Amériques (Our American Brothers, 1918).[2]
Something of a dandy,[2] Boutet de Monvel was engaged with the fashion industry in various ways. In 1912, he began writing for the Gazette du Bon Ton, a leading fashion magazine of the day, and shortly became a regular contributor.[2] In 1915 he attended the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco as a representative from the French fashion industry.[2] The following year, he wrote promotional copy for designer Paul Poiret.[2] After the war, he returned to writing about fashion in Gazette du Bon Ton as well as in magazines like Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Monsieur.[2]
He died in the 8th arrondissement of Paris on Christmas Day 1951.[1] He left a set of unpublished memoirs that he had been working on since the late 1930s.[2]
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