Galerie Paul Prouté

Pierre Letuaire was born in Toulon in 1798. His father, a tailor, encouraged him to pursue a military career. He entered secondary school thanks to a friend of his grandfather, Laurent Julien, an art teacher, who took Letuaire on as a pupil. In 1814, when his father abandoned the family home, Pierre Letuaire found himself at the head of his family, having to provide for his mother and three brothers and sisters. He began to work in a number of small trades using his drawing skills, such as decorating stationery. From 1818, Letuaire became a drawing teacher and replaced Laurent Julien at the college after his death in 1821, a post he held until 1868. He was awarded the Légion d’Honneur by Napoleon III for having set up a free evening course for workers at his town’s arsenal. Letuaire was above all a draughtsman, and favoured the use of the pen. His compositions were often enhanced with watercolours. Sometimes nicknamed the Daumier of Toulon, he owes his reputation to his caricatures depicting comical characters, sometimes zoomorphic, humorously inspired by the figures he came across in the streets of Toulon.