Pierre Munier was born on 12 May 1889 in Paris, France. When
he was only 13 years old, he already started engraving, during an
apprenticeship with another artist engraver. At 16, helped by the painter Huet,
he entered the Académie Jullian, a private painting and sculpture academy
founded in 1868 by the French painter Rodolphe Jullian. A year later he entered
the National School of Fine Arts where his engraving teacher is Jules Jacquet.
He struck up an immediate friendship with a future fellow stamp engraver,
Charles-Paul Dufresne. Meanwhile, Munier earned his daily bread by making
sketches of surgical operations and by designing, painting and engraving post
cards for the tourist trade.
Munier exposed his work quite often and received various
accolades but missed out on the coveted Prix de Rome because he had married at
a young age, and the Prix de Rome was only awarded to bachelors.
Munier’s ties to the stamp world started as early as 1907,
and he is said to have been responsible for stamps issued in countries such as
Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, Persia, Armenia and Belgium.
But it is not until 1936 that he got the chance to engrave a
stamp for France, the 1f50 value from the set marking the 100th flight between France and South America. Two years later he finished his first
engraved stamp which was also designed by him, the 10fr Vincennes stamp. It
would mean the start of a long career with many stamp issues, during which
Munier excelled in both landscape and portrait engravings.
Munier’s 100f airmail stamp for Senegal, issued in 1942, has
an interesting background story. The original engraving was made by Munier. But
no sooner had it been finished or an order came to produce this stamp for all
French colonies. That meant that the country name of Senegal had to be removed.
This is done by removing it from the transfer roller, after which a new die can
be laid down. This was done and the opportunity was taken to re-engrave the
lower part of the design as well. The runway was lengthened and the plane’s
shadow was re-engraved so as to stand out better.
A few die proofs were made with this generic design, but
before the actual printing plates were made, the decision to use the stamps in
all colonies was rescinded, which meant that the original die with the Senegal
name included was used after all for the eventual stamp issue.
In an interview in 1954, when Munier was asked what he would
change in the world of stamp production, he expressed regret about the way the
French Post pitched stamp designers against each other in competitions for
stamp issues. According to him, the French PTT is well aware of each artist’s
strong and weak sides and should therefore be perfectly able to choose designers
and engravers themselves for a specific issue, rather than having them fight it
out in a competition. Being chosen to make a design would also encourage the artist
much more to come up trumps.
Pierre Munier passed away in Eppeville en Roumois on 30 June
1962.