André Bouler was a Jesuit and an artist. In some, this invites conflict. But for Fr. Bouler, both vocations permeated his being. After all, this Jesuit and artist was also French.

He was "a born painter," according to the French Jesuit magazine Compagnie, and the landscape of Brittany, where he was born in 1924, was a strong force in his early paintings. As a boy he played along the rocky seashore that Paul Gauguin had painted decades earlier.

In 1945, Fr. Bouler drew this caricature of Fr. Guy de Broglie, a Jesuit theologian of great renown and a member of a princely Italian family long established in France. When Fr. de Broglie died, members of the family approached Bouler: "Père, you have made a portrait of our uncle; might we see it?" The artist obliged, and the family used this drawing as a memorial for their esteemed relative.

After finishing his Jesuit studies in 1957, Fr. Bouler began painting in a studio in Paris adjoining that of fellow Jesuit Jean-Marie Tézé. "André was a cheerful companion, funny, the life of the party," Fr. Tézé wrote in Compagnie. He loved people and had an eye for their distinctive character traits, which he recorded in his countless caricatures. And he had a passion for beauty; he did not speak about it, but he treasured it.

He began with studio painting but branched out to liturgical art, especially stained glass windows. Numerous churches and chapels in France are monuments to his art, as is the chapel at the Jesuits' America House in New York. He spent time as a visiting artist at Fordham and Fairfield universities and was a consultant to the Vatican's UNESCO representative for artistic affairs. He died in Paris in 1997.

The caricatures here are a small sample of Fr. Bouler's work. According to fellow French Jesuit Jean Boulangé, Fr. Bouler would normally engage a subject in conversation and only afterwards go to his room and sketch and color from memory. His love for people and his attention to detail led to witty, honest, and loving remembrances of them. The descriptions of these caricatures are based on the comments of Fr. Boulangé, who refers to his colleague with affection as "the most dangerous Jesuit in France."  

Fr. Pierre du Bourguet, SJ, worked at the Louvre as curator of Coptic antiquities. This whimsical portrait depicting him carrying his two important logos was done in honor of his 70th birthday.

At a meeting of Jesuit artists in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1974, Père Bouler created these sketches of (left) composer Fr. Kevin Waters of Seattle University and (above) librettist Fr. Ernest Ferlita of New Orleans. Two years earlier, at a similar meeting of artists at Frascati, outside Rome, the artist penned this sketch of Fr. Pedro Arrupe(above right), the superior general.

"The sage in his wisdom says, 'I will not punish the insolent' " reads the legend appended to this rendition of Fr. Jacques Lesage, SJ, who served as the provincial of the Jesuits' Paris province from 1967 to 1973. Perhaps the legend was what the artist hoped Fr. Lesage would say after seeing this punning portrait.

Bouler made this drawing of Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac in 1960. Twenty-three years later, when de Lubac was made a cardinal, the artist updated his work with a red hat. Cardinal de Lubac thanked his old friend.

When a new provincial is to be named, Jesuit communities are asked for advice-- "What do we need in our new provincial?" Community discussions often produce a job description only a pope who is also an enlightened emperor and therapist could fill. At a community meeting early in 1978, a Jesuit community produced just such a description, summarized by Bouler in this Wanted poster. The drawing of the man of all virtues is, in fact, a self-portrait with the face left to be filled in.