I wanted to pay hommage to the Sketch Grunts…

I called them in French “les petits grognards du crobard” (it’s a complex play on words, a poem by Paul Fort on Verlaine’s funerals by Georges Brassens mixed with the memory of the nickname of Napoleon’s soldiers: the “Grognards“, phheeeww).

These were all the guys at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière where I spent countless afternoons, happily sketching. Well, sometimes the pose was boring or I was too stoned… so I used to draw the drawers :). I felt and still feel an infinite tenderness for these people, they were admirable, devoted, committed. Many pensioners spending their time there in a daily ritual. In fact many must be dead by now, one more reason they remain somewhere, a bit alive I hope.

Of course I lost lots in dead hard drives. Here are the double survivors…