Artists

The City of Light has always drawn artists from near and far. As France’s political powerhouse, Paris naturally also became the beating heart of its art scene. By the end of the 19th century (and well into the 20th), the capital was teeming with art institutes, galleries, publishers and collectors. They could count on the city’s remarkable abundance of print shops to meet their needs and spread the influence of Parisian art  and culture far and wide.

But after the Second World War, a competitor arose in the form of the burgeoning US art market. The art world began to migrate. With print shops springing up along both the east and west coasts of the US, many of France’s lithographic printers were enticed across the Atlantic, taking their expertise with them. Fernand Mourlot himself was not immune to the charms of this new market: in 1968, he installed his son Jacques at the helm of a new lithography workshop in New York. After four years, however, he decided that America was not for him.