Swiss-French, 1845–1917
Eugène Samuel Grasset (25 May 1845 – 23 October 1917) was a Swiss decorative artist who worked in Paris during the Belle Époque and is considered a pioneer of Art Nouveau design. Born in Lausanne, the son of a cabinetmaker and sculptor, he studied drawing under François Bocion and in 1861 went to Zurich to study architecture. A journey to Egypt and his admiration for Japanese art both left their mark on his later designs.
After settling in Paris in 1871 he designed furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, tapestries, ceramics and jewellery, and from 1877 he turned to graphic design, eventually including postage stamps for France and Switzerland. Posters became his forte: his Jeanne d'Arc for Sarah Bernhardt appeared in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, and American commissions followed, among them the 1892 Christmas cover of Harper's Magazine and the 1894 posters for The Century Magazine's life of Napoleon. In 1890 he designed the 'Sower' emblem of the Larousse publishing house.
Grasset taught design at the École Guérin from 1890 to 1903 and later at other Paris schools, including the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the École Estienne; in 1896 he published a study of plants in ornament illustrated with his students' designs. His lettering became the 'Grasset' typeface, presented by the Peignot foundry at the 1900 Universal Exhibition. He died in Sceaux, near Paris, in 1917.
50 artworks
