Life and career
Dulac studied painting at the art school in Toulouse and exhibited portraits at the Paris Salons in 1904 and 1905. In England, illustrating the Brontë novels gave him an early publishing commission. His drawings and watercolours also reached audiences as individual works at the Leicester Galleries in London. He became a British citizen in 1912.
During the First World War the Red Cross drew on two quite different sides of his practice. Dulac designed small adhesive labels and assembled a lavish picture book sold to support wounded French soldiers. The appeal at its opening told buyers where the proceeds would go. After the war the market for expensive gift books contracted, and his work increasingly included magazine illustration and designs for small printed objects.
Work and ideas
For The Dreamer of Dreams, Dulac illustrated a fairy tale written by Marie of Romania. His plates for Shakespeare’s The Tempest accompanied particular lines in the play. The published list of illustrations identifies moments as different as Prospero recalling his arrival on the island and Caliban remembering his first encounters with the newcomers.
The precision that served those full-page images also suited the scale of postage stamps. Dulac designed a stamp for the coronation of George VI in 1937 and stamps for the Free French during the Second World War. His work for the British post continued into the reign of Elizabeth II.
