Roland Raymond Ferdinand Caillaud (January 5, 1905 – December 3, 1977) – known professionally as Roland Caillaux, and sometimes using the pseudonym Roland Caipland – was a French actor and artist. He is known for acting in several French films in the 1920s and 1930s, and for producing and publishing homoerotic illustrations in the mid 20th century.

Roland Caillaux
Born
Roland Raymond Ferdinand Caillaud

January 5, 1905
DiedDecember 3, 1977
NationalityFrench
Other namesRoland Caillaux
Roland Caipland
Occupation(s)Actor, artist

Caillaux has long been best known for illustrating 20 lithographies pour un livre que j'ai lu (20 lithographs for a book I read), which accompanied a text attributed to Jean Genet with images of male homosexuality, including explicit sexual activity. The book was published in April 1945, without the name of the author, the publisher or place of publication, with a print run of only 115 copies.

In this text, there are excerpts, however variants, of Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs and The Parade, poems published by Marc Barbezat in 1948 in a collection entitled Poems and signed this once Jean Genet (Editions L'Arbalète).[1]

Roland Caillaud's studio was located on Rue Boulard in the 14th arrondissement of Paris; it is there, between 1944 and 1945, that Jean Genet met the painter through model Édouard Dermit.[2]

Nicole Canet, who has rediscovered many of Caillaud's drawings, reports that he inherited money from his parents and lived as an annuitant[clarification needed] after having been an actor. He lived at 5 rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. In a memoir, François Sentein says that when he traveled by bicycle to Montpensier street where Jean Cocteau lived, he kept his bicycle pump in his hand, for fear of it being stolen.[3]

Acting

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Under the name Roland Caillaux, he appeared in the following films:

He performed in the following stage plays:

Paintings, drawings, illustrations

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  • Raymond Voinquel en costume de marin, 30 x 23 cm, 1931
  • Portrait de Christian Bérard dans l'atelier, 22 x 18 cm, 1937
  • Gentilhomme de la Renaissance, aquarelle, 64 x 48 cm, 1937
  • Jeune Femme à l’orientale, 72 x 50 cm, 1938
  • Femme du désert, huile, 114 x 87 cm, 1939
  • Village en bord de mer, huile, 54 x 81 cm, 1943
  • Portrait d’adolescent, mine de plomb, 46 x 31 cm, 1944
  • [frontispice] Mademoiselle de Murville de Roger Peyrefitte, éditions Jean Vigneau, 1947
  • Le Pot ancien, huile, 81 x 65 cm, s.d.
  • Verlaine et Rimbaud, fusain, 31 x 24 cm, s.d.

Some drawings seem to have been signed by the pseudonym Roland Caipland

Exposure(s)

  • 1933, Paris, Galerie des Quatre-Chemins

References

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  1. ^ Albert Dichy, Jean Genet, essai de chronologie, 1910-1944, Bibliothèque de littérature contemporaine, IMEC, 1988.
  2. ^ Selon le témoignage d'Albert Dichy d'après Patrick Cardon, préface à la réédition de 20 lithographies pour un livre que j'ai lu, Lille, Question de genre/Cahier Gay Kitch Camp n°33, 1996
  3. ^ In Minutes d'une autre année, 1945, Paris, Le Promeneur, 2003 ISBN 978-2-07076621-5
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