Claude Jeancolas
Claude Jeancolas was a French writer, art historian, and journalist. He is best known for his work on Arthur Rimbaud.
Life
Jeancolas spent his childhood and adolescence in Nancy, in eastern France. At the age of 16, after having attained a Baccalaureate Diploma, he moved to Paris. In Paris, he continued his studies in a preparatory class for the "grandes écoles," and afterwards entered the École Supérieure de Commerce of Paris. He earned a degree from the Business School of the University of Texas, where he wrote his thesis on the management of the American press. Claude was a visiting scholar at various American universities, including UCLA, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, the School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri, and Columbia University in New York. He died on 10 February 2016.
Career
Journalism career
Jeancolas began his career as the head of the financial analysis department of the weekly magazine Entreprise. He then founded two management journals: Enseignement et gestion and Revue Française de Gestion. Subsequently, he became the head of the avant-garde monthly Mode International. He later edited the magazines Collections, Décoration, and Mariages. He moved to Votre Beauté, a magazine that François Mitterrand edited early in his career. Jeancolas then joined the Hachette Group as the international editor of Elle and Elle Décoration. He also created Cousteau Junior and Max. Until 2012, he was the director of Marie Claire Maison and Marie Claire travel magazines in Milan.
His interest in art developed in 1969 after meeting the sculptor Edmond Moirignot, with whom he became a close friend and later the guardian and executor of his will. In 1987, he published a monograph on the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Following this publication, Jeancolas studied the history of sculpture and French drawing. He later published two books on the Nabis and the Fauves.
Rimbaud
Jeancolas studied Rimbaud's work and regularly published on the topic. He believed Rimbaud to be too intelligent to be incoherent, as he was at the top of his class. He also wrote about Une Saison en enfer. Additionally, he wrote about the poet's highly criticized mother, Vitalie Rimbaud, in a biography that aimed to demonstrate the love she had for her child and her importance to Rimbaud.