L’école enchantée de Raylambert

Raymond Lambert (1889-1967) was born in Elbeuf, trained in the Havre and then at the Arts décoratifs in Paris where the father of Paul Morand was one of his teachers. The painter is practically unknown today. Yet, under a rather transparent pseudonym – Raylambert – he was acclaimed by stars such as Picasso and Dali. The latter saw in him “the missing link” between Benjamin Rabier and Hergé. That is because the genius of Raylambert, though he delved into advertising, theater settings and postcards, was especially incarnated in a specific field: the illustration of school books. Over a thirty year period, as of 1931, he contributed to upturn the sinister punishments of the Third Republic. He worked for the greatest publishing houses - Delagrave, Belin (who published this work), Magnard or Didier – he imagined labels that brightened up lessons of arithmetic, history, geography, and citizenship education and even gave grammar an almost friendly aspect.

• L’école enchantée de Raylambert, par Daniel Durandet et Yves Frémion, Belin, 2016, 208 p., €29.90.