This Friday, Jean-Michel Strobino was at the Brouillon bookstore, located in the center of Nice, for a signing event to present his new book “EFFF D’HEY, the Artist Who Chased Butterflies”.
This book is based on the career of the poster artist Francis Dujardin, known only by his pseudonym, EFF D’HEY. An artist and a scientist, he contributed to the prominence of Nice throughout the 20th century with his famous posters. Jean-Michel Strobino tells us about his book.
Can you introduce your new book, “EFFF D’HEY, the Artist Who Chased Butterflies”?
It’s the discovery of a local artist, poster artist, and illustrator. He was unknown until today because he signed these posters under the name EFF D’HEY. Therefore, it is his signature that remained famous, as it appeared on these posters. But his real name, Francis Dujardin, unfortunately, is little known.
So, it was with a certain desire to make him known under his real name that you got the idea to create this book?
Yes. I had the chance to know him in my youth. This artist was also a naturalist. For over twenty years, he formed a team of entomologists with my father. When I was little, sometimes we would go to his place, and while I waited, Dujardin would create a little drawing on the desk that I would color in. This character left a mark on me. I felt obliged to testify about this man, who was completely forgotten. During my frequent walks in Old Nice, I would see these posters everywhere, in souvenir shops, adapted on mugs, towels… Without any reference to their author, aside from sometimes his signature EFF D’HEY mentioned. One day, I told myself, you who knew him, you really have to do something.
You must have done some research work on Francis Dujardin for this book. How did you go about it?
There were three types of research. First, the artist’s family opened up their archives to me, where I found wonderful and completely unpublished things. His relatives also told me about his life, but he remains nonetheless a mysterious character. I also worked on the departmental archives. And then a third thing, my personal research work. In this book, there are two parts, EFF D’HEY the artist and Francis Dujardin the naturalist; for the second, I used a lot of documents from my family, through my father.
