Marcel Augis

Marcel Augis was a French printmaker active in the early 20th century, known for etchings and aquatints of European landscapes and of the Western Front during the First World War. His dates of birth and death are not recorded in available sources, and "Marcel Augis" may be a working name: the gallery RoGallery describes it as a pseudonym of "H. Dupont".^[1:1] Much of the surviving record of his life and work comes from art-dealer and auction listings rather than scholarly biography, and several basic facts about him remain unverified.

Work and subjects

Augis worked chiefly as a printmaker, producing etchings combined with aquatint — a technique in which powdered resin is fused to a metal plate and bitten in an acid bath to create broad areas of tone resembling a watercolour wash.^[2:1] His prints were typically signed and titled in pencil.^[2:1]

His landscape subjects include rural and architectural scenes such as water mills and bridges. One representative print, Water Mill, is an etching with aquatint measuring 8.25 x 6 inches, signed and titled in pencil; RoGallery has offered it for US$375.^[2:1] An auction record dates the same print to circa 1915.^[3:1]

First World War prints

According to RoGallery, Augis belonged to a group of French and Belgian artists who worked along the battlefields of the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, recording the wartime devastation and the areas held by Allied troops.^[1:1] Many of the resulting etchings and aquatints were sold to soldiers returning home after the war, or were later bought by visitors on the battlefield remembrance tours of the 1920s and 1930s.^[1:2]

Market presence

Works attributed to Augis continue to appear on the art market. The aggregator MutualArt catalogues 31 works under his name, alongside auction and exhibition records.^[4:1] Individual prints have changed hands at modest prices; RoGallery has listed the etching Water Mill at US$375.^[2:1]

Sources and uncertainty

The documentary record for Augis is thin and derives largely from commercial galleries and auction houses, whose descriptive notes repeat closely similar wording. The statement that "Marcel Augis" is a pseudonym of "H. Dupont" appears in RoGallery's catalogue text but is not corroborated by an independent scholarly source in the material reviewed here.^[1:1] No reliable source consulted gives his dates of birth or death, and the dating of individual works is approximate, with the most specific record placing the print Water Mill at around 1915.^[3:1] These questions could be settled by archival research into French and Belgian wartime printmakers, by examining signed and dated impressions, or by locating exhibition or publication records from the 1910s and 1920s.