Influences part 21: Rene Gruau

I first mentioned the work of Rene Gruau as an influence when I published Painting 1 of my 12fp(s) film-inspired painting series.


Gruau is a graphic illustrator with a minimal yet very bold visual style that I find really appealing.
I think that to a great extent the quality of his work speaks for itself, so rather than write a whole load of text, here's a few samples of his work to do the same job much quicker:



I'm posting the work of Rene Gruau as an influence just now because I'm finding the simplicity of his work really inspiring while I work on a female portrait painting based on a beautiful photograph with soft texture and colour. I originally wanted to paint the portrait in a style closely influenced by the 100 year old illustrations of Arthur Rackham, and although this is still my intention, I think Rackham's style will be too rough and may spoil the simplicity of the portrait, hence why I am also looking at the work of Gruau...

Related links:
- www.renegruau.com
- Rene Gruau: Capturing the look of Parisian chic. Veronica Horwell, The Guardian newspaper, 15 April 2004.
- Rene Gruau images at CyanaTrendLand.com