212 - [UZELAC, Milivoy or Milivoj, attributed to].

[UZELAC, Milivoy or Milivoj, attributed to]. [Large Pornographic Drawings]. No place, no publisher, (ca. 1930s–1940s). Folio. 12 sheets, each bearing a large drawing, housed in a thick black paper folder illustrated with negative-image motifs made from fascini. Each drawing is mounted along one edge onto large sheets of thick paper: 8 are on ivory paper (32 x 42.5 cm, except for one drawing measuring 24 x 34.3 cm) and 4 on black paper (25.3 x 31.7 cm) (the spine of the folder is broken). A series of 12 large, colorful pornographic drawings from the first half of the 20th century. Private commissions accepted. Mixed media, graphite and colored pencils or pastels with bold, aesthetic lines and blending techniques. The rendering is vivid and highly skilled, suggesting the hand of a professional artist or illustrator. The drawings on black paper are reserved for scenes of group debauchery in front of a projected pornographic film created using a cut-out vintage photograph (erotic black-and-white photos from the 1900s–1920s). To this end, they employ a photomontage technique involving collage and a more abstract or stylized line drawn with richer colors, creating a mise en abîme effect that lends a modernist significance. While the latter drawings seem imbued with a more Art Deco style, all the drawings appear to be by the same artist. Handwritten titles in pencil at the bottom of the drawings: “Coucou,” “Trésor caché,” “L’Aimable secrétaire” (coites avalis), “L’ogre,” “Demoliseur” (sic), “Lislotte,” “Les 3 grâces,” “Documentaire,” “Encore documentaire”... Explicitly pornographic images, sometimes of a “very free” nature featuring sexual intercourse, addressing various themes of the genre. It is worth noting the transgressive nature of certain drawings. Their cinematic or photo-novel quality—with scenes resembling snapshots accentuated by the energetic style, references to cinema, and the style of the characters and their clothing (when they are wearing any)— all of this places these scenes in the 1930s or 1940s and suggests an artist trained in the 1920s, working primarily in the field of illustration. Milivoj or Milivoy Uzelac (1897–1977) was a painter active in Zagreb’s modern art scene during the 1920s and 1930s, notably as a member of the “Group of Four.” He spent much of his career in France, where he was known for his portraits, sports illustrations, and interior scenes featuring bohemian figures… Unidentified ex libris mounted on the reverse side of one page of the folder: figurative, printed in color from a drawing that may be by the artist, though this cannot be confirmed; it depicts two dogs or pigs standing side by side, their intertwined tails forming the monogram “R G.” Provenance: from the library of Pierre Séjourné. Pierre Séjourné (1930–1993), a Parisian bookseller and lover of bookbindings, a flutist, and an enthusiast of literature and classical music, frequented both the Parisian artistic and literary circles and the world of the decorative arts and their schools through his uncle, the architect and academician Albert Laprade. Also an author and actor, he devoted himself to writing and performing his own plays, which were staged primarily in the Paris region.