Rating and value of works, drawings, paintings by Marcel Bascoulard

If you own a work by or after Marcel Bascoulard, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise estimate of its value on the current market.

Then, should you wish to sell your work, we will direct you to the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price. Isabelle Cazeils, our photography expert, will best answer your queries.

Rating and value of the artist Marcel Bascoulard     

Marcel Bascoulard leaves behind a self-taught and marginal work. Now, prices for his works are rising under the auctioneer's hammer. His drawings are highly prized, especially by French buyers.

The price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €180 to €5,900, a very substantial gap but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Bascoulard's works.

In 2018, his photograph Bascoulard travesti was sold for €5,900 while it was estimated at between €2,000 and €2,500. Its quotation is stable.  

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique of artist Marcel Bascoulard

Marcel Bascoulard, self-taught, eludes any defined artistic trend. He produces drawings, paintings and photographs, mainly of self-portraits and landscapes.

His pen drawings, with their precise, spontaneous strokes, reveal a raw, almost instinctive mastery. He does not seek to respect academic conventions, preferring a free, sometimes rough gesture, where emotion takes precedence over technique.

His paintings, although rare, play on color contrasts, often dark, reflecting a certain melancholy, perhaps even an echo of the life he leads on the bangs of society.

His photography occupies a special place in his work, notably through his self-portraits in which he cross-dresses. These stagings, far from being anecdotal, raise questions about identity and society's view of the individual.

He blurs the boundaries between masculine and feminine, reality and fiction, and uses his own body as an artistic medium. His shots, often taken in modest settings or outdoors, reflect a sensitivity to the light and atmosphere of the places he inhabits.

As for his landscape photos, they are imbued with solitude, capturing moments of calm that contrast with the tumult of his personal life, even if they are less highly rated than those of some less marginal artists such as Christo and Jeanne Claude or Alphonse Mucha.

The life of Marcel Bascoulard

Marcel Bascoulard was born in Bourges in 1913. His childhood was marked by a family tragedy: his mother killed his father, an event that left him deeply traumatized.

At an early age, he developed a taste for drawing, an activity that became an escape for him. In the 1930s, his first sketches attracted the attention of Marcel Pinon, who invited him to join the École des Beaux-Arts in Bourges.

But Bascoulard, unattracted by academic studies, spent a brief period there before going off on his own.

He led a bohemian life, sleeping wherever he could, often in shacks or abandoned cars. His poverty doesn't prevent him from continuing to draw and paint, but above all from photographing himself.

Bascoulard stands out for his taste for cross-dressing, a practice he integrates into his daily life and his art. His self-portraits as a woman, taken with a rudimentary camera, express a rejection of social norms.

This eccentric aspect of his personality made him famous in Bourges, where he was both feared and admired. However, the way he dressed earned him a few arrests, as society at the time had little tolerance for such behavior.

Despite everything, he continued his work, refusing to conform to expectations. He draws with his pen with a precision that contrasts with the apparent anarchy of his life.

His subjects are often dark, introspective, as if he sought to express his malaise through his art. Bascoulard, a solitary figure, became a key figure in Bourges, where he ended his life in isolation.

In 1978, he was murdered by strangulation, an act that put an end to an existence already marked by violence and marginality. The town of Bourges, in recognition of his local impact, organized his funeral.

Focus on Autoportrait au collier de perles, Marcel Bascoulard, 1960

Autoportrait au collier de perles en studio (1960) by Marcel Bascoulard is both intimate and provocative, evoking the work of other 20th-century artists who also explored questions of gender and identity.

Like Claude Cahun, Bascoulard blurs the boundaries between masculine and feminine in her self-portraits.

Like Cahun, whose surrealist photographs question established norms, Bascoulard uses her body to reclaim her image and redefine her identity.

The pearl necklace, a delicate and traditionally feminine accessory, refers here to the social construction of gender, while creating a discrepancy between the elegance of the pearls and the precariousness of the artist, reminiscent of Cahun's destabilizing stagings.

The silver print also reveals a technical mastery that recalls the portraits of Man Ray, another great twentieth-century photographer, who played with contrasts of light and shadow to sublimate his subjects.

In Bascoulard, the light seems sculpted around him, highlighting not only the details of the necklace, but also the grave expression on his face.

The almost clinical technical precision reinforces the psychological intensity of the image, just as in the photographs of Diane Arbus, who also captured marginalized and eccentric characters, revealing a raw, unadorned humanity.

Bascoulard's direct gaze, imbued with defiance and melancholy, recalls the self-portraits of Frida Kahlo, another artist who often portrayed herself in introspective dialogue.

Like Kahlo, Bascoulard uses her body and clothes as symbols, not to conceal but to reveal herself, transforming suffering into a creative force.

The theatrical aspect of this studio portrait is also reminiscent of the work of Cindy Sherman, who a few decades later would also reinvent herself under different identities in her photographic series.

With Bascoulard, however, there is no ironic distancing: her self-portrait with pearl necklace is a sincere and disturbing claim to her right to be multiple, outside the norm.

Thus, this portrait stands at the crossroads between these major figures of twentieth-century art, while remaining deeply personal and unique.

Through this photograph, Bascoulard invites us not only to question our relationship to identity, but also to rethink the limits of the self-portrait as a genre, echoing those who, like him, have pushed back the boundaries of representation.

Marcel Bascoulard's imprint on his time

Marcel Bascoulard, despite his life on the bangs, leaves an important imprint. Although his name is not well known outside Bourges, his works are beginning to attract the interest of collectors, particularly at auctions.

The uniqueness of his creations, combining drawing, painting and photography, is attracting more and more art lovers in search of singular works. His artistic output, marked by his personal experiences, reflects an unusual sensibility that is difficult to classify.

The photographic self-portraits in which he cross-dresses, long perceived as a mere eccentricity, are today being revisited under a new prism, notably through contemporary debates on identity and gender.

Bascouard, by defying the conventions of his time, now appears as a precursor, an artist who questioned norms long before these issues became central to artistic discourse.

His pictures, at once provocative and introspective, show a human fragility that we could never guess behind his extravagant allure.

His drawings, often dark, reveal a complex inner world, marked by trauma and solitude. The fine, rigorous lines of his works contrast with the chaotic life he led.

His works, though few in number, become sought-after objects, as they embody the authenticity of an artist who always refused to conform.

His marginality, far from being an obstacle, becomes a strength, a way of exploring uncharted territories in twentieth-century art.

Marcel Bascoulard didn't seek recognition during his lifetime, and yet today, posthumously, he gets it.

His works, rediscovered over time, find a place in art history, not for their technicality or their belonging to a movement, but for the freedom they embody.

Bascoulard is the epitome of the cursed artist, misunderstood in his time, but whose work survives and resonates long after his death. His life, like his art, remains a poignant testimony to the importance of difference and the refusal to bend to expectations.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Not all of Marcel Bascoulard's works are signed. They may be at the bottom of the painting or drawing, but if you think you own one, it's best to have it appraised to be sure of the originality of your property.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by Marcel Bascouard or after the artist, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal using our form on our website.

A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the market value of your work, not forgetting to send you ad hoc information about it.

If you wish to sell your work, you will also be accompanied by our specialists in order to benefit from alternatives to sell it at the best possible price, taking into account market inclinations.