The books listed above do not include those published from 1923 to 1931 under the name
Éditions d’Art Devambez, which was a separate series of artist's books. The appointment of
Édouard Chimot in 1923 as artistic director of a fine press imprint,
Les Éditions d’Art Devambez, opened a new era for Devambez. Chimot was among the artists who carried the
Symbolist aesthetic forward into the age of
Art Deco. The 1920s were his heyday. This was when his own art was at its most powerful and original, and also when his influence throughout the Parisian art world was most strongly felt. As artistic director of the fine press
Les Éditions d’Art Devambez, Édouard Chimot worked closely with artists such as
Pierre Brissaud,
Edgar Chahine,
Tsuguharu Foujita, Drian, Jean Droit, Henri Farge, and Alméry Lobel-Riche. Typically, books published by André Devambez under the direction of Chimot were illustrated with original etchings, in strictly limited editions of a few hundred copies. In 1929, Devambez published a lavish catalogue, simply entitled
Les Éditions d’Art Devambez, in an edition of 100, to be given to his chief collaborators and preferred clients, containing extra proofs from all the books published from 1923 to 1929. Each copy of this catalogue was numbered and signed by Chimot to a named recipient. As almost all the books are already listed as out-of-print and unobtainable, the catalogue is not a sales pitch, but a record of achievement. To make the 100 books, the publisher bound up existing proof pages, to distribute to those most interested: 'Ce n’est pas un catalogue de reproductions que nous lui offrons, mais les précieux défets des livres eux-mêmes: les eaux-fortes du tirage et les feuilles typographiques du tirage, imprimées sur les différents papiers employés pour chaque édition.' In order to construct a catalogue in this way, all copies of the book must be unique in their content. Devambez may have regretted the extra expense involved in creating this exquisite calling card, as the
Wall Street crash and subsequent
Depression devastated his market. No one would be buying, or bankrolling, projects such as these in the 1930s. There were several books still in the pipeline, but the glory days of the Chimot/Devambez partnership were over. Some announced books seem to have been cancelled. The artists involved in
Les Éditions d’Art Devambez include Art Deco masters such as Pierre Brissaud (who illustrated three books of the 31 or 32 published) and Drian. Drian was born Adrien Desiré Étienne, into a peasant family in Lorraine. The chatelaine of the village took an interest in the talented boy, but was horrified by his desire to be an artist. So when Adrien Étienne went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, he took the pseudonym Drian – his own first name, as his contemporaries heard it in his slurred Lorrain accent. He is often listed as Adrien Drian or Étienne Drian, but both are incorrect: the name Drian stands alone, like
Erté. Chimot drew from the wide range of artists from round the world who had settled in Paris in the 1920s : William Walcot was an English artist born in Odessa to a Russian mother;
Edgar Chahine and Tigrat Polane were both
Armenian émigrés; Tsuguharu Foujita, known to his Montmartre friends as Léonard, was the artist who more than any other infused Japanese art with a modern Western sensibility. Édouard Chimot himself was the most prolific supplier of original prints to Les Éditions d’Art Devambez, illustrating with etchings
Les Chansons du Bilitis,
Les Poésies de Méléagre,
Les Belles de Nuit,
La Femme et le Pantin, and
Verlaine's
Parallèlement.
List of books published under the imprint Les Éditions d’Art Devambez (See References for sources of this listing.) •
Anatole France,
Le Petit Pierre, ill. Pierre Brissaud, 1923 •
Anatole France,
La Vie en Fleur, ill. Pierre Brissaud, 1924 •
Henri de Regnier,
La Canne de Jaspe, ill. Drian, 1924 •
Pierre Louÿs,
Les Chansons de Bilitis, ill, Édouard Chimot, 1925 •
Maurice Barrès,
La Mort de Vénise, ill. Edgar Chahine, 1926 •
Claude Farrère,
L’Homme qui Assassina, ill. Henri Farge, 1926 •
Gustave Flaubert,
Salammbô, ill. William Walcot, 1926 •
Pierre Loti,
La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune, ill. Tsuguharu Foujita, 1926 •
Pierre Louÿs,
Les Poésies de Méléagre, ill. Édouard Chimot, 1926 •
Alphonse Daudet,
Les Lettres de mon Moulin, ill. Jean Droit, 1927 •
Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau,
Les Nouvelles Asiatiques, ill.
Henri Le Riche, 1927 •
Jean Lorrain,
Monsieur de Bougrelon, ill, Drian, 1927 •
Maurice Magre,
Les Belles de Nuit, ill. Édouard Chimot, 1927 •
André Suarès,
Le Livre de L’Émeraude, ill.
Auguste Brouet, 1927 •
Maurice Barrès,
Greco ou le secret de Tolède, ill.
Auguste Brouet, 1928 •
Alphonse Daudet,
Les Contes du Lundi, ill. Pierre Brissaud, 1928 •
Gustave Flaubert,
Hérodias, ill. William Walcot, 1928 •
Pierre Louÿs,
La Femme et le Pantin, ill. Édouard Chimot, 1928 •
Alphonse de Chateaubriant,
Monsieur de Lourdines, ill. Henri Jourdain, 1929 •
Gustave Flaubert,
Novembre, ill. Edgar Chahine, 1929 •
Joris-Karl Huysmans,
Le Drageoir aux Épices, ill.
Auguste Brouet, 1929 •
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette,
La Princesse de Clèves, ill. Drian, 1929 •
Alfred de Musset,
La Nuit Vénitienne, ill. Jean-Gabriel Domergue, 1929 •
Émile Verhaeren,
Les Villages Illusoires, ill. J. van Santen, 1929 •
René Boylesve,
Nymphes dansant avec des Satyres, ill. Tigrane Polat, 1930 •
Colette,
Mitsou, ill. Edgar Chahine, 1930 •
Ovid,
Métamorphoses, ill. André Lambert, 1930 •
André Suarès,
Le Voyage du Condottière, ill. Louis Jou, 1930 •
Oscar Wilde,
Salomé, ill. Alméry Lobel-Riche, 1930 •
Joris-Karl Huysmans,
Marthe, ill.
Auguste Brouet, 1931 •
Paul Verlaine,
Parallèlement, ill. Édouard Chimot, 1931 There appears to be one further volume published as part of the same series as those above, but not included in the published catalogue, perhaps because it was deemed too risqué: • ''Petite Mythologie Galante à l'usage des Dames, Les Dieux Majeurs'', ill. André Lambert, 1928 Three books announced for 1930 may never have been printed. These were: •
Anatole France,
Crainquebille, ill.
Auguste Brouet •
Stéphane Mallarmé,
Poésies, ill. Édouard Chimot •
Albert Samain,
Le Jardin de l’Infante, ill. Édouard Chimot == Devambez and advertising ==