Charles Leandre

Menu artist: Charles Lucien Leandre, 1862-1934, was an honorary member of the Cornet from 1904 until his death. Leandre’s work was found in various well-known weeklies such as Le Chat Noir, La Grosse Caisse, Le Rire, La Vie Moderne, Le Journal Amusant and nearly 40 other publications. In the closing years of the 19th century his Le Rire Gotha des Souverains series elevated him to equal Steinlen, Ribera, Willette and other popular caricaturists in rank. Leandre was also a painter, portraitist, talented poster designer, lithographer and sculptor. He produced enchanting studies of the emotions of his subjects, often emphasizing their sometimes less attractive features. Nocturnes, Le Musee des Souverains, and Paris et la province are among a series of albums Leandre illustrated, while Joseph Prudhomme, La Femme au Chien Les Lutteurs, Les Nouveaux Maries and Yvette Guilbert are a few of his well-known posters. 

Leandre illustrated the poster, Cantomimes de Xavier Privas, that showed Georges Wague as Pierrot (a rare example which is now housed in the Montmartre Museum), and later painted a Pierrot postcard for Wague that is much like its larger poster counterpart. He contributed four works to Masters of the Posters and in 1904, with fellow Cornet member Abel Truchet, founded the Salon of Humorist Designers, a group to which many Cornet artists belonged. Leandre received the Medal of Honor of the French Artists, was a member of The Society of Lithograph Painters, and became a Knight of the Legion of Honor. In 1930, while an honorary member of The Bibliophiles of the Cornet, he created 15 stunning lithographs in Edmond Haraucourt’s book, Autre Temps. Today he is represented in the Leandre Museum in Nice, as well as several other museums in France and elsewhere. He designed only three menus for the Cornet Society, between 1904 and 1922, but his immense dedication as a member is apparent from his creation of many other illustrations such as designing most of the caricatures of the presidents of the dinners for Le Cornet newsletter.