On March 13th Nautilus Art Prints will make available one of Laurent Durieux‘s early works in film — his illustration titled ‘François à l’Americaine‘ is a character piece from French filmmaker Jacques Tati‘s first film ‘Jour de Fête.’
The poster is a celebration of Tati’s wit and sensibilities, full of joy and comedy. With Nautilus turning to Laurent for entry into their upcoming series of Tati inspired prints, I spoke with Nautilus’ (and Laurent’s brother) Jack Durieux about the interesting history of his brother’s ‘François à l’Americaine‘ poster.
French Fillmmaker Jacques Tati
Detail of ‘François à l’Americaine’ by Laurent Durieux for Nautilus Art Prints
ETDC: Laurent did this illustration awhile back, correct? It’s a piece that’s always caught my eye in his portfolio.
JD: Yes, Laurent did this poster, well the first version as this one has been modified in several places, but it was made in 2011 for a Jacques Tati group show here in Brussels. When the Tati Family who were attending the show saw Laurent’s piece, they flipped!
So this brings us today, we have acquired the license and naturally, when we did, they asked if we were to publish Laurent’s ‘François à l’Américaine’ and we thought, well of course.
It has never been published, it’s an amazing image and it’s a nice way for the public to discover Jacques Tati’s first movie ‘Jour de Fête’ through Laurent retro-futuristic vision.
I noticed you guys went with digital printing for this piece. What lead to the decision to have this be a giclee versus a screen print?
The giclee vs screen print is simply a matter of number of colors, there is just too many colors to make it a screen print. This image was done before Laurent got into the screen print business, all his prior illustrations were meant to be giclees.
The resolution was also too low to even try changing it into a screen print. We thought, it’s too beautiful to shelve it just because it’s only a giclee, this need to be published and loved by as many as people as possible!
‘François à l’Américaine’ by Laurent Durieux
‘François à l’Américaine’ by Laurent Durieux
61 x 91,5 cm. / 24″ x 36″ Giclee Print
Timed Edition starting on Friday March 13th and Available for 72 Hours
Price: 60€ – 65$
Visit Nautilus Art Prints HERE
French Fillmmaker Jacques Tati
