Grandville

Grandville, byname of Jean-ignace-isidore Gérard, (born Sept. 13, 1803, Nancy, Fr.—died March 17, 1847, Paris), French caricaturist who is admired as a fantasist and proto-Surrealist. His big-headed people, seen as if in distorting mirrors, and his animal analogies (individuals with the bodies of men and the faces of animals) have been considered among the sources for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Grandville received his first instruction in drawing from his father, a painter of miniatures. At the age of 21 he went to Paris, where a collection of his lithographs entitled “Les Tribulations de la petite propriété” (“The Trials of Owning a Small Estate”) was soon published. His reputation was established with “Les Métamorphoses du jour” (1828; “Present-day Metamorphoses”), a series of 70 scenes in which human-animal figures enacted the human comedy. Grandville contributed drawings to many periodicals, including La Caricature and Le Charivari. Both his political caricatures and his illustrations for works of literature were widely popular.