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We have not died in vain
Honoré Daumier, title/caption in Daumier’s print; in the last publication of ‘La Caricature’, 27 August 1835.from: Daumier, the Man and the Artist, Michael Sadleir; Halton and Truscott Smith LTD, London, 1924, p. 9
Honoré Daumier. French printmaker, caricaturist, painter. Born 1808. Died 1879, broke and nearly blind.
Four thousand lithographs over his career. Four thousand. Satirical cartoons ripping apart French politics, the bourgeoisie, the legal system, everyone who had it coming. He drew fat lawyers bilking clients. Politicians as pigs. The king as a bloated monster swallowing the wealth of France.
That last one got him six months in prison. 1832. Drew King Louis-Philippe as Gargantua, literally depicting him as a giant creature eating money and shitting out government favors. They locked him up for it. Six months. Didn’t stop him.
He kept drawing. Kept lampooning. The powerful, the corrupt, the self-satisfied bourgeois assholes who ran everything. He saw what they were and he put it on paper for everyone to see.
You know what he got for it? Not much. Died poor. Went blind at the end. His sight… the thing he needed to do his work… just… gone.
After he died, suddenly everyone realized he was a genius. Museums bought his work. Critics called him a master. Too fucking late. Like all the ones who told the truth, paid for it, and got their flowers when they couldn’t smell them anymore.
That’s how it works.
Shot on infrared film in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Signed Limited Edition 11” x17” print of 10; stamped on verso. Professional black & white printing on Hahnemühle fibre-based Matt paper.