Politics and Wit: The Comic Genius of André Gill
January 14, 2006 — April 30, 2006

Reva and David Logan Gallery of Illustrated Books
In the waning days of the Second Empire, in 1860s France, an artist emerged of originality and satiric bite whose caricatures of the leading politicians, actors, writers, and artists were the talk of Paris.

Louis-Alexandre Gosset de Guines took on the name André Gill in homage to his hero, James Gillray, an 18th century English printmaker. Gill’s large hand-colored, lithographic portraits were printed first in a weekly four-sheet newspaper, La Lune. When Napoleon III closed down the newspaper, Gill and his allies quickly reopened a new publication, called L’Éclipse!