La Chouette

Gabriel Paris

French artist Gabriel Paris was from a military family but was interested in art and poetry, and studied architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was admitted to the advanced classes at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques in Paris and he graduated as a Set Designer when he was 25.

He did this colorful lithograph of an owl in 1961, when he was 37, while still working as a set designer and book illustrator. The composition incorporates many of the influences from painters such as Seurat, Bonnard, and Desnoyer as well as from Surrealism and Impressionism and the School of Paris artists.

Gabriel Paris left behind an extraordinary body of work, consisting of 1800 engravings, a dozen artist’s books and almost fifty paintings.