Jean Richepin
1892
Meet Jean Richepin, depicted here in a hilarious 1892 caricature by Félix Vallotton that turns the French writer into a grumpy, curly-haired giant. With his tiny body and massive hammer, Richepin looks less like a man of letters and more like a mythological blacksmith forging words. This visual joke fits the poet perfectly; he was a famous rebel born in Algeria who wrote gritty verses about the poor and was even arrested for obscenity early in his career. Vallotton, a master of graphic arts later associated with the Nabis, shrinks the body to emphasize the huge, intense head where all that controversial creativity lived.