Pierre René Hérault (1900 - 1982) was a French illustrator and artist. He was best known for his lively, Art Deco-inspired, humorous, and often very racy (practically pornographic) illustrations for French magazines such as Fantasio, La Rire, and Le Sourire. These highly-stylized cartoons celebrated the sexual independence of the 'flapper girls' of the era and mocked traditional mores. Herault also produced advertisements for a range of products, but most often cosmetics, perfumes, shampoo, and related products, including the likes of L'Oreal, as well as Dubonnet aromatized wine, which was marketed heavily towards women. Hérault also occasionally illustrated books. For example, during the Second World War, he illustrated a French edition of Machiavelli's satirical play The Mandrake, published in 1943 in Angers by Éditions Jacques Petit, which may have been intended as an oblique criticism of the Vichy regime and German occupation (exactly 666 copies of the work were printed; at the same time, he had illustrated a 1941 book titled La Vie d'honneur du Maréchal Pétain Racontée et Illustrée pour les Jeunes Français). The details of Hérault's life are scant, aside from his being born and dying in Cholet, in the Maine-et-Loire département in western France, though he almost certainly lived in Paris during the most productive phase of his career in the 1920s and 1930s. His cartographic production is limited to a surprisingly upbeat pictorial map of Europe published in 1946, reflecting hopes for a postwar revival of the continent's fortunes.
