René GRUAU

From the late 1940s through the 1960s René Gruau produced drawings for covers of the men’s fashion magazines Club and Adam, as well as for Sir: Men's International Fashion Journal, a quarterly trade publication devoted to male fashion published in Holland by the International Textiles group. Gruau produced many cover designs, as well as illustrations, for Sir magazine throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. 

In a text accompanying a recent exhibition devoted to the male image in Gruau’s art, it was noted that ‘On the surface, crafted in gouache and felt tip pen, Gruau’s man is chiselled, groomed, suave and sophisticated. Suited and booted he is always dapper, sometimes depicted with a strategically dipped Trilby hat and occasionally accessorized with an umbrella or cigarette. He’s the picture of simmering machismo. He’s the man about town, a real-life James Bond in control of every situation he finds himself in.’