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Albert Robida
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Albert Robida pseudonym Roby
Born in the Spring of 1848 - Compiegne; died October 11, 1926 - Neuilly (Paris).
The son of a Finish carpenter Robida studied to become a notary but decided in 1866 to work as a designer and illustrator. An avid traveler in his early year, between 1875 and 1879 Robida made numerous trips to study in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Hungary. Robida possessed an erudite eye for the ‘poetry’ of Europes old cities and parlayed his travels into a successful series of books which he pounded out in few short years; Vieilles villes d'Italie (1878), Vieilles villes de Suisse (1878), Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul (1879), Vieilles villes d'Espagne (1880), La Tour enchantée (1881), Voyage de Monsieur Dumollet (1883).
In both age and experience, Robida was an elder dean of the artists associated with the French illustrated journals. A lithographer and etcher as well, he began drawing for magazines as early as 1866 in Le Journal amusant and contributed work under the pseudonym Roby to Paris-Caprice, La Vie elegante, Paris-Comique. Robida was a long time contributor to La Vie parisienne during the last days of the Second Empire and the first days of the Third Republic.
Robida’s displays at the Salon de Paris in 1868 and 1870 were notable, and in 1873, after living for three months in Vienna doing drawings for Der Floh (The Flea), Robida succeeded in reviving the ‘New La Caricature’ (the earlier publication, of prestigious memory, had been founded in 1830 by Charles Philipon and had had Daumier as chief artist). In later years Robida submitted a number of drawings for publication in Le Rire and Fantasio. From 1881 Robida was a member of the Salon des Artistes Français and after 1893 a member of Sociétaire du Salon devenu and in n 1900, for World fair, Robida served as one of the organizers of the reconstitution of old Paris.
Robida also wrote and illustrated a number of very successful books, both standard accounts of travel and topography and humorous prophecies of life and technology in the twentieth century; his "prophetic" volumes are still highly desirable collector's items including : Le vrai sexe faible (1884), Les petits mémoires secrets du XIX siècle (1885), Le Porte-feuille d'un très vieux garçon (1885), Les Peines de cœur d'Adrien Fontenille (1885), La Bête au bois dormant (1922). Robida’s La Guerre au XXe Siecle (1887) was a prophetic harbinger of the machines of modern warfare –Robida correctly foresaw many of the terrible instruments of WW1. Years later, in 1918 at the end of the Great War Robida came full circle and published an album Les Villes Martyres (The martyred Cities.)
Working as a hired illustrator Robida created humorous compositions for the collected works of Rabelais, Contes pour les bibliophiles de Octave Uzanne (1895), Gulliver Swift (1904), François 1er de G. Toudouze (1909), Le bon roi Dagqbert de G. Trémisot (1918), Fabliaux et contes du Moyen Âge (1926).
Critics and commentators of Robida’s work are quick to stress the fecundity of sources and the diverse range of interests from which he drew inspiration and the supple renderings of his subjects with inventive fancy in both authorship as a narrator and illustrator. Whether the work was of a serious or trivial nature Robida’s vision retains a candid quality which neither obfuscated detail nor impeded the accuracy of the information being conveyed. It is no wonder then that Robida was never lacking for a new project and he is said to have produced some 60,000 drawings. Life at seaside resorts was a favorite subject of his for decades; usually drawn with exceptional care in the fussy, meticulous, scratchy style that prefigures Ronald Searle.
Sources :
-Appelbaum, Stanley: French Satirical Drawings from L'Assiette au Beurre. Dover, 1978.
-E. Benezit : Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. Grund, Paris, 1999.
-Marcus Osterwalder: Dictionnaire des Illustrateurs, 1800-1914, Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 1989.
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