‘Samivel’ Paul Gayet-Tancrède (1907 – 1992)
L’alliance de l’homme et de la montagne

Original vintage poster
100 x 62 cm

A man sits atop a grassy hill, taking in the nature around him and looking down into the valley below. He is surrounded by the white peaks of the French alps in the Parc national de la Vanoise. Nearby a sparrow has settled on a small boulder amongst the mountain flowers. The scene is bucolic and calls to mind traditional depictions of mountain life in the likes of Heidi.

Samivel was a writer, an artist, a photographer, an explorer, and more. In 1948 he accompanied Paul Émile Victor on the first French Greenland expedition, making three documentary films in the process. His friends included Théodore Monod and Gilbert André – the latter the mayor of Bonneval-sur-Arc and one of the founders of the Vanoise National Park – and with them and others he spent his whole life aiming for the protection of the imperilled countryside. The graphic artist side of him had a life-long fascination with high mountains, and his illustrated books and series of posters of the French Alps have long been popular.