History

It was back in 1881 – the year Pablo Picasso was born – that Eugène Dufrénoy bought a plot of land at 49 rue du Montparnasse, in the centre of Paris, for his brand-new art print shop. Dufrénoy was a well-known figure in map printing, having exhibited at several of the World’s Fairs held in Paris during the second half of the 19th century. He employed a staff of around fifty in his 1400 m² print shop, which by the early 20th century had become somewhat of a mecca for the Parisian art world.

Montparnasse was the place to be for Parisian artists at the time. Constantin Brancusi, newly arrived in the capital, had taken up residence directly opposite the workshop, at 54 rue du Montparnasse, and Matisse was no more than a stone’s throw away at 132 boulevard du Montparnasse. Nearby Vavin was a hive of cultural activity, abuzz with cafés and bars thronged with artists, musicians and writers such as Modigliani, Picasso, Soutine, Cocteau, Foujita, Stravinsky, Debussy and Apollinaire.

Dufrénoy remained at the helm throughout this artistic boom period, up until the Second World War. The workshop then passed to his descendants, who opted to rent it out rather than running it themselves, first to L’Imprimerie Michard – another renowned map-printer – and then from 1976 onwards to Fernand Mourlot (1895-1988) – largely credited, alongside his brothers, with reviving art lithography in Paris during the interwar years. The workshop on Rue du Montparnasse was Mourlot’s last, and under his influence became Paris’s best-known fine art print shop.