Tribute to Postman Cheval

For his piece Tribute to Postman Cheval, produced for the exhibition Avec le facteur Cheval (With Postman Cheval) at the Musée de la Poste (the French Post Office Museum), Rancillac took inspiration from a portrait photograph taken in 1905. Postman Cheval is painted with vivid colors in Bernard Rancillac's characteristic style. Wearing a cap on his head, he is dressed in his rural postman's outfit. Unlike in the photo, the postman looks at us proudly. The drawing of a red horse collides with his mustachioed face. Referencing the postman's family name (Cheval, or Horse) with a dash of humor, their entanglement also creates a third eye on his forefront. So was Postman Cheval a visionary? Undoubtedly, his imagination fed his construction, in which fairies, pilgrims, animals, and other creatures live side by side. He inscribed on the north facade of his palace: "D'un songe j'ai sorti la reine du monde" (Out of a dream I have brought forth the Queen of the World). The work is signed in the bottom left corner and, mimicking the perforations of a postage stamp, the edges of the piece refer back to the naive builder's double life as a postman.