Hometown: Paris, France
Fernand Mourlot was born in Paris in 1895. He grew up in the family print shop but it wasn’t until he took over in the early 1920s that he would change the fabric of printing forever. His influence fostered a resurgence of lithography, revealing it as a new avenue for expression and a new realm of possibilities for likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Alberto Giacometti to enrich their own work as well as fine art in general. Fernand cultivated the lithograph as a painter’s medium and the family studio on Rue Chabrol became a hub where he could invite artists to work directly on the stone, as if creating a poster. In 1937, the studio produced two posters (based on paintings by Matisse and Bonnard) for the Maitres de l’Art indépendant exhibition at the Petit Palais. The posters were of such excellent quality that it was clear they had attained the height of printing mastery. Fernand retired in the mid 1970s but his name remains to this day synonymous with rebirth of lithography.
]]>Hometown: Paris, France
Jacques Mourlot was born in Paris in 1933 and grew up at the print shop with his father Fernand. In his time outside of his work at the studio, Jacques was a talented trumpet player and part of the house band of La Caveau de La Huchette in the late 1940s. In 1950, Jacques joined the French army and was stationed in North Africa attached to the French Foreign Legion.
After being wounded in battle and spending a year of recovery in the hospital, Jacques returned to Paris in 1954 to assist Fernand in running the print shop. In addition to working at the studio, Jacques pursues a career as a race car driver. Soon his technical prowess and achievements in printing garnered respect by artists and master printers alike as Jacques matured into Fernand’s closest assistant. His attention to detail and nuanced technique made him an invaluable asset in both the artistic and technological process of the family studio, introducing new approaches to the development of printing.
In 1966, Jacques was designated by Fernand to Pioneer the family name in New York after a tour with the Smithsonian showed the Mourlot Collection throughout the United States. After moving with his wife Liliane and son Eric, Jacques established Bank street studio where he went on to create beautiful pieces with artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Ben Shahn, Alex Katz, James Rosenquist, and Lee Krasner.
For six years he worked and printed in this studio as well as participated in projects for prestigious institutions including the Smithsonian, MoMa, and the Met. Upon his father Fernand’s retirement in the mid 1970s, Jacques and his family returned to Paris to take over the main studio. It was here where he continued to help finish the later works of Chagall, Miró, Buffet, and those of many other artists until his retirement in 1990.
]]>Hometown: New York, NY
Eric Mourlot was born in 1970 in New York City while his father Jacques was running the studio on Bank Street and after two years, the family relocated back to Paris for Jacques to take over the main studio. It was here where he, as a child, began to spend his evenings learning various printing techniques with the help of artists including Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, and Joan Miró. Eric participated in the printing process, cleaning off the machine rollers and developing a keen sense for his surroundings as a source of inspiration and creativity. He quickly became passionate about the relationships and collaborations between artists, printers, gallerists, and publishers leading him to open his first gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in 1991. In 2005, Galerie Mourlot relocated to its current Upper East Side location in NYC where Eric continues to provide a platform for artists to create history. Mourlot Editions is the legacy of his family’s print shop, the next chapter of the story. An avenue of expression where Eric can display both the works and histories of the artists his father and grandfather created with, as well as expose the continued relationship between printers and artists through the process and art form of lithography.
]]>Hometown: Bronx, NY