Vintage Lawn Tennis Print – SEM (Georges Goursat) – c1920

This is a fabulous reproduction tennis art print of a 1920’s lithographic print by the French caricaturist Georges Goursat. During his illustrious career, the artist signed most of his artwork under the pseudonym SEM. The delightful tennis print captures a delightful scene during a rally in a ‘friendly’ game of mixed doubles lawn tennis.

The popularity of tennis increased dramatically in the 1920s. Women were able to compete in the Wightman’s Cup and men in the Davis Cup matches. Following the success of players such as Bill Tilden in the men’s division and the global domination of Helen Wills in the Women’s game, the sport became an incredibly popular sport. Lawn parties, country clubs, and resort hotels drew sporting guests for afternoons of lawn or court tennis ensured that tennis became a very popular leisure activity. Tennis, became fashionable as did the outfits worn for the sport by both sexes.

Lawn Tennis at Le Touquet art print

The original version of SEM’s Vintage Lawn Tennis Print was part of a series of images depicting life at Le Touquet. In the 1920s Le Touquet or Le Touque-Paris-Plage to give  it its official name was a popular French seaside resort frequented by wealthy British and French aristocracy. The town is located in the Pas-de-Calais in northern France. The seaside golf and gambling resort became known as ‘Paris by the Sea’ because of the volume of wealthy Parisian visitors that would descend on the area to holiday, often for months at a time.

Tennis has always been a popular pastime at Le Touquet. It is one of the attractions listed on a Chemins de Fer du Nord railway travel poster. The Le Touquet Paris-Plage poster produced in the early 1920s lists golf, horse riding, swimming, water sports, sand yachting and of course tennis as some of the region’s must-do activities. Le Touquet Tennis Club itself is one of the few establishments to be included in the circle of Centenary Tennis Clubs where the first courts of which were inaugurated in 1904  and champions Jean Borotra and Suzanne Lenglen from the 1920s played.

The artist Georges Goursat aka SEM

Sem was a prolific and popular artist whose skill as a caricaturist is outstanding. His work is often very reminiscent of early Leonetto Cappiello characters. In 1888, at the age of 25, and with the help of the wealth inherited from his father, Gousat had already self-published three albums of caricatures. Some of these early drawings were already being signed under his nom-de-plume SEM.

In 1890 Goursat moved from his birthplace of Périgueux, south west France to Bordeaux. Over the next eight years he went on to publish more albums and had his first caricature published in the French daily newspaper La Petit Gironde. During this period Gousat started to make trips to Paris.

During some of the visits to the French capital, SEM designed two posters at Chaix Lithographers, Jules Cheret’s workshop. Both were flamboyant designs for the Belle Epoque singer Paulus. SEM’s work was also being published in French journals including La Rire and.

SEM… the move to Paris and success!

Following a couple of years in Marseille, Goursat moved permanently to Paris in 1900. In June, three months after his arrival, he self-published a new album, Le Turf, with caricatures of many prominent Parisian socialites including: the Marquess Boni de Castellane, Baron Alphonse, Gustave de Rothschild, Prince Trubetskoy, Count Clermont-Tonnerre and the French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud, better known by her stage name Polaire.

In October of the same year, he published another album, Paris-Trouville, which was met with similar success. The two albums made SEM famous overnight. He followed the books with nine others between 1900 and 1913.