Albert Decaris

Who was Albert Decaris?

Albert Decaris was a French artist, engraver, painter and aquarellist.

At only 19, he won the Concours de Rome, the most prised award for young artists in France at the time. He has been elected fellow of the French Académie des Beaux Arts in 1943.

He was first illustrator of luxury art books, such as Le chant de mon voyage vers la Grèce by Léon Cathlin, Combourg by Chateaubriand, Les discours des misères de ce temps by Ronsard, Les destinées by Alfred de Vigny, etc. In 1931, he produced a Macbeth. After 1958, President Charles de Gaulle was fond of Decaris’s works, especially of the illustration of his own book Le fil de l’épée.

In the 1930s, he embarked himself into postal stamps carving, resulting in more than 500 such vignettes, for the French or other postal services. Stamp collectors are fond of Decaris stamps, as well as of the numerous associated derivative products: small images or illustrated envelopes sold the first day a new stamp is emitted.