Serge Gainsbourg – Signed photo. “Woe to the beardless” – 1959.

Serge Gainsbourg (1928.1991)

Autograph card signed to his pianist friend Lucien Merer.

"Woe to the beardless"

Paris. 1959.

Promotional photographic card for Philips (photo by Jacques Aubert) featuring a bust of Gainsbourg for "Singing in the spotlight! ..."

The proof bears this wonderful and sarcastic signed autograph inscription in black ink:

Woe to the beardless!

serge

____________________________________________________

In October 1958, shortly after Serge Gainsbourg's debut at Milord l'Arsouille, the Frères Jacques performed for the first time on stage, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, "Le Poinçonneur des Lilas", a song which had been written by Gainsbourg, recorded by him in June 1958 and published in his first album, "Du chant à la une ! …" in September 1958.

A year later, in order to promote Gainsbourg's recordings and his own singing tour at the Théâtre de l'Étoile (October 1959), Philips organised a session with the in-house photographer, Jacques Aubert: the full-length portrait from which this promotional card is taken appears, as a double-page spread, in the programme for this event.

The sarcastic expression "woe to the beardless" takes on a certain ironic quality in retrospect, knowing what would become of the artist's three-night beard. It is highly probable that Gainsbourg intended this as a humorous counterpoint to the song "Honneur aux barbus!" (Honor to the Bearded!), written by Pierre Dac and Francis Blanche for Les Quatre Barbus.

This photograph comes from the archives of his friend and collaborator Lucien Merer (1927-2019), pianist, composer and arranger who accompanied him from his earliest days. Merer collaborated with several other big names in the music scene: Boby Lapointe, Jean Ferrat, Cora Vaucaire, Édith Piaf, Léo Ferré and Charles Aznavour, sometimes assisting them during their beginnings or their singing tours in Parisian cabarets and concert halls (L'échelle de Jacob, Milord l'Arsouille, Bobino, etc.).

Document of the utmost rarity.