Gavarni, Paul

Gavarni, Paul (pseudonym of Sulpice-Guillaume Chevalier) (b Paris, 13 Jan. 1804; d Paris, 24 Nov. 1866).
French lithographic caricaturist, a leading satirist of French bourgeois life (he is often seen as the equivalent in social satire of Daumier in political satire, although he was an artist of lesser stature). Gavarni was described as ‘the best-dressed man in France’ and his style was appropriately elegant and witty. His work, which appeared in various journals, including La Caricature (see Philipon), was popular in England as well as France, and he visited England in 1847 and 1851. While there he studied the life of the poor in London and in Gavarni in London (1849) he contrasted it with the life of the rich, the benign irony of his earlier works giving way to a more trenchant satire. As he aged he became reclusive and his work expressed disenchantment with life.