Rouault, Georges, Le Père Ubu chantre, 1928

Ambroise Vollard was Georges Rouault’s dealer from the 1910s. Also an art publisher, Vollard commissioned numerous works from the painter, including illustrations for his own writings. Rouault produced twenty-one illustrations for Réincarnations du père Ubu, a book about Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi.

The engravings don’t correspond exactly to Vollard’s narrative line; the text is the starting point for an original adventure imagined by the artist. He elevatesUbu Roi’s characters to archetypes: the crooked politician, the opportunistic voter, the ridiculous colonist… Thanks to their representation in the simplicity of a pause and the density of an atmosphere, they become timeless.