Marcel Bascoulard

Marcel Armand Bascoulard was a multifaceted French artist known for his talents as a photographer, illustrator, painter, poet, and designer. Among his diverse oeuvre, his captivating photographs portraying himself in handmade dresses stand out as the most intriguing, mysterious, and renowned.

Biography of Marcel Bascoulard

Marcel Bascoulard was born in 1913 in Vallenay and was raised in Saint Florent-sur-Cher. In 1932, when Bascoulard was 19 years old, his mother fatally shot his father before attempting to flee. She was subsequently committed to the psychiatric hospital for the remainder of her life. This traumatic event deeply affected the young man, as he had been particularly close to his mother.

Following the tragedy, Bascoulard relocated to the Avaricum neighborhood in Bourges to be closer to the mental asylum where his mother was residing. Here, he spent the remainder of his life as a vagrant.

Despite his circumstances, he pursued studies at the École des Beaux-Arts. Initially, he commenced his artistic career by sketching landscapes of the city and its surrounding suburbs, capturing streets, architecture, and nature in ink, gouache, and lithography. Over time, he expanded his repertoire to include pastels and paint, and eventually ventured into abstraction. Bascoulard sustained himself by selling or bartering his artwork to locals.

Using simple materials such as ink, colored pencil, and pastel—often smudged with his fingers on recycled paper—Bascoulard created near-photographic representations in his conventional souvenir pictures. He frequently traded these artworks for food and milk to care for his rescued cats, which often featured in his drawings and photographs. While his drawings were accepted by the bourgeois townspeople, his photography did not receive the same level of acceptance.

In 1937, his work was showcased at the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques in Paris.

Bascoulard began his series of photographic self-portraits in 1942. At times, he photographed himself as an exaggerated derelict in rags with a scruffy beard, accurately reflecting his everyday attire. However, images of him in feminine clothing are more prevalent. His early 1940s photographs capture a performative period where he donned traditional nineteenth-century women's fashion. By the 1950s, his style became more consistent, posing at eye level to the camera with minimal, less theatrical backgrounds.

Though Bascoulard's work was discovered belatedly, it has since been featured in numerous exhibitions held at Andrew Edlin Gallery, Christophe Gaillard, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Delmes & Zender, Galerie La Box, and many other venues.