Adolphe Willette

Adolphe Léon Willette was a French painter, illustrator, caricaturist, and lithographer, as well as an architect of the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret. Willette ran as an "anti-semitic" candidate in the 9th arrondissement of Paris for the September 1889 legislative elections.

Willette studied for four years at the École des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel. His graphical work ranged from dainty triviality or political satire: he made Pierrot an imaginary hero of France, and established Mimi Pinson as frail, lovable, and essentially good-hearted. He could also be bitter and fierce, a partisan of political ideas. The guillotine and the figure of Death appear in his caricatures. At the time of the Dreyfus affair he was an anti-dreyfusard; with Jean-Louis Forain, he moved to the political right.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023