Life is too short to be little. This quote by erstwhile
British Prime Minister Disraeli was on Yves Beaujard’s mind when he relocated
his family to the United States to start his career as an engraver.
Yves Beaujard was born on 27 November 1939 in Saint-Aignan
in France. His love for both engraving and the United States was soon ignited,
for it was an old American engraver who first taught him how to handle the
burin. Thoroughly enthused, he enrolled at the École Estienne, where his
teachers were the famous stamp engravers Pierre Forget and René Cottet. But Beaujard
always maintained that that old American taught him more in a very short period
than he could ever subsequently learn at Estienne. Beaujard completed his training
at the École Estienne in 1960. In 1966, he finished his first philatelic work:
a design for a South Vietnam stamp. But at the time, he mainly worked as an
illustrator in the publicity industry.
The following year, when École Estienne were looking for
someone to go to the United States, Yves Beaujard naturally volunteered and came
to work for the US Banknote Company in Philadelphia, engraving banknotes and
stock certificates. He also engraved a series of portraits of all the US
Presidents which were used by the Franklin Mint. This work cemented his
reputation for portrait engravings on security papers. The United States are
known for their own classic style of portrait engraving, a style which is held
on to at all cost, to ensure the quality and security of all engravings.
In 1977, Yves Beaujard returned to France. Thinking he would
easily get a job as an engraver, his efforts to get employment from the
French Post were a bit haphazard, and therefore led to nothing. Beaujard found
it easier to find employ as an illustrator, so he went on to illustrate various
book covers, especially for children books. He also continued to work for his
American clients. He always kept a soft spot for the United States.
Beaujard also kept a soft spot for the art of engraving. In
1999, he therefore contacted the French post again, this time more seriously,
and was duly given the opportunity to create his first stamp: a single value
marking the 146th death anniversary of the historian and social campaigner
Frédéric Ozanam. He felt at the time it was a daunting step to take, after
having been an illustrator for so long. Having to return to the business of
engraving, and on such a small format at that, was like having to start working
in cross-stitch. At the time he stated that he did see himself as a craftsman
rather than an artist. But he has always preferred the engraved stamp to any
other form of stamp, even though the process may have its colour limitations.
He marvelled at the fact that you could produce something which looked great
when just looking at it but also when studying it under a magnifying glass. As
a child, he used to collect the stamps of the French colonies, in love with
their exotic imagery and colouring. He is still very fond of the work of the
engraver Jacques Gauthier.
Yves Beaujard has always been rather pro active when it
comes to encouraging others to learn how to engrave. Fellow artist SarahBougault, for example, has said she was introduced to the art of engraving by
Yves Beaujard when she met him at the École Estienne. But Beaujard also visits
secondary schools to try and inspire the kids to learn about the art of stamps
design, engravings and the various printing processes. He even managed to inspire
his own daughter Sophie to such an extent that she has been involved as a
designer, and recently an engraver as well, of stamps issued in France and its
territories for many years now.
It was therefore no wonder that Beaujard became involved in
the association Art du Timbre Gravé. A movement to preserve the art of stamp
engraving was started by Timbres Magazine in 2004, and soon picked up by
engraver Pierre Albuisson, who contacted Beaujard. Beaujard was immediately convinced
of the importance of this, and agreed to join the association, becoming its
Vice-President, a position he held for a decade.
One of the membership perks of
the association is the publication of special engravings by its members. Beaujard
engraved the first one to be issued, in 2005, a symbolic illustration of
designing and engraving hands. To mark the tenth anniversary of Art du Timbre
Gravé, the usual engraving presented to the members was again made by Beaujard.
The design was of the two-faced Roman God Janus, symbol for beginnings and
endings, looking back to the past and forward to the future.
Beaujard’s philatelic career has since taken flight, with
his portfolio including many beautiful portrait stamps and every now and then
an issue which lay even closer to his heart. In 2004, for example, he relished
engraving the Statue of Liberty for a French stamp, and in 2012 the French Toy
Soldiers issue paid homage to his other passion.
But the highlight must for him surely be that which most
French engravers long for: the opportunity to engrave the country’s Marianne
definitives. His Marianne et l’Europe was chosen in 2008 and remained in use
until 2013.
You will find Yves Beaujard's database HERE.