Themes

Jean Delpech  showed the Second World War as he saw it: soldier, Parisian during the German occupation, witness to the Liberation. He kept drawing under all circumstances and accumulated a precise documentation of the details of life at that time.

Jean Delpech did his military service in the 15^th Battalion of Alpine Chasseurs.

His enthousiasm for the beauty of the alpine landscapes and mountains surprised him after a childhood in the ricefields and old hills of Indochina.

Mobilized in1939, he experienced the “Drôle de Guerre” and the rout, always a pen in his hand, drawing on the back of wall paper or on pieces of geographic maps, tirelessly sketching what he saw in front of his eyes, the tragic-comic mixture of humanity and barbarism.

Back to Paris, he taught industrial drawing in Saint Ouen, then in a boarding school for pre-delinquents. In January 44, not to be “idle” and after being threatened to be sent to work in Germany, he got an inscription to the competition for the “Prix de Rome” in etching, that represented a four month job. He ended up in the third position.

At that time made fake identity cards for Resistance fighters, at the Mourlot printing house. He met  Picasso during the Liberation of Paris.

Monotypes were created “in the fever of these astonishing days” and expressed the atmosphere of the City, of barricades and  the last fights of the Liberation. These works were shown a few month later at the Christofle gallery.

He was hired temporarily as an “Army painter” and joined the 3d D.I.A. He followed the German Campaign with the Reconnaissance Squadron of the 7^th Chasseurs.

In all circumstances he continued engraving, etching, drawing and painting, his declared intention being to leave an account of his time.

Liberation