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It�s a while since I posted about the master of the Art Deco nude, �douard Chimot. Of course if Chimot were simply a depictor of the nude, there wouldn�t be much to say about him�boudoir pictures are boudoir pictures, and that�s it. But Chimot is a much more complex artist than that�one in whom the twin themes of Eros and Thanatos, Love and Death, are inextricably intertwined. �douard Chimot, Le caf�-concert maudit Colour etching with aquatint for La mont�e aux enfers, 1920 Of course Love sells better than Death, so sensuous nudes inevitably predominate in �douard Chimot�s work. But his obsession with prostitutes, drug addicts, and good girls gone bad, means that the spectre of death and destitution hovers behind and around Chimot�s nudes, turning them from decorative erotica into perverse memento mori. They are women �soumises � leurs passions mortelles et d�licieuses�, as the critic Andr� Warnod put it. �douard Chimot, La Mort Etching with aquatint for L'enfer, 1921 In my previou