Types de l'Armée Américaine en France (Types of the American Army in France), Jean-Émile Laboureur

Exhibition Label: "Machine in a Void: World War I & the Graphic Arts," Mar-2010, Steve Goddard In 1895, Laboureur moved to Paris to study law, but instead embarked on a formal study of printmaking. His work was influenced by his friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, especially in terms of his cosmopolitan subject matter, while the use of strong black-and-white contrasts throughout his career shows the influence of Swiss artist Félix Vallotton. Due to Labourer’s experiences living and traveling in the United States, he was drafted in 1914 as an interpreter attached to the 12th division of the British army. He continued to produce prints, although his work ignored the horrors of war in favor of what he saw as the comic aspects of the situation. In 1917, he was transferred to Nantes to work with the American troops arriving there. These experiences later informed his woodcuts for Types, and for the remainder of the War, Labourer liked to liven up his prints with images of happy-go-lucky Americans. The text accompanying the The General, as translated by Douglas Cooper: General, or, as they say, “Captain of industry?” Outwardly a business man and dressed somewhat like a civilian, he is surrounded by the plans which one associates more with an engineer’s office. But isn’t he the attentive engineer of a smooth-running and well-oiled machine which if it were fitted with the latest improvements would fulfill hopes of “a machine to end the war.”