Paul-Emile Bécat

About Paul-Emile Bécat

Paul-Emile Bécat was a French figure, portrait, and landscape painter, and, latterly, a prolific engraver and erotic illustrator. He studied in Paris at the école des Beaux-Arts under Gabriel Ferrier, and François Flameng, and first exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1913, later winning the médaille d’argent. He won the prestigious Government scholarship the Grand Prix de Rome in 1920

Bécat travelled extensively in Africa during the 1920s and on his return became one of the best-loved illustrators of erotica the French have produced, usually in drypoint, including a deck of playing cards for Editions Philibert, portfolio L’art d’aimer.