Paul Bilhaud
French playwright and librettist (1854-1933) · France · On the map · Writers · Died at 78
Paul Bilhaud was a French playwright and librettist. An old friend of the author Alphonse Allais, he is remembered along his friend as a forerunner of minimalism with his painting Combat de nègres pendant la nuit, displayed for the first time in 1882, more than thirty years before the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich.
Paul Bilhaud is read about 12 times a day, in 3 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 27 July 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 60 days, one point a day.
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It had been missing since that time until it was rediscovered in a private collection in 2017-2018. It has been classified as a National Treasure by the French state. Bilhaud was not the first to create an all-black artwork: for example, Robert Fludd published an image of "Darkness" in his 1617 book on the origin and structure of the cosmos; and Bertall published his black Vue de La Hogue in 1843. Inspired by Bilhaud, Alphonse Allais proposed other monochrome paintings, published in his Album primo-avrilesque in 1897.
