'Une Mission du Capitaine d'Artagnan' (Grand Coeur #1, 1947).
Albert Jaminon was a Belgian painter, designer, sculptor and stained glass artist. Early in his career, he also worked as a comic artist, drawing the serial 'Une Mission du Capitaine d'Artagnan' (1947) for Charles Gilbert's short-lived magazine Grand Coeur. As a teacher, he trained a great many notable graphic artists and painters, both in Liège and in Belgian Congo. During the 1960s, he was also a background painter for the animated adaptations of Hergé's 'Tintin' comics at the Belvision studio.
Early life
Albert Jaminon was born in 1925 in the town of Jupille. His father was an independent stationary merchant. As the third of eight children, Jaminon grew up in Jupille and Liège, where he enjoyed designing circus posters and inventing powerful and legendary dragons. During the Nazi occupation, he and his brothers ignored the ban of the oppressor and continued to attend and lead local scout gatherings.
Education
Through his mother's side of the family, Jaminon was a cousin of the abstract painter Léopold Plomteux (1920-2008), a member of the Cobra group. As a teen in the 1930s, he developed an early interest in the expressionist painters of the Walloon, Ardennes en La Meuse scene, as well as the Flemish painter Constant Permeke. At the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Liège, where Jean Julémont was one of his teachers, he studied decorative painting, graphic design, anatomy and art history. He graduated in 1947 with a Grand Prix in painting. During that same period, he also attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, studying under Adrien Dupagne, and won a Grand Silver Medal for Drawing.
'Une Mission du Capitaine d'Artagnan' (Grand Coeur #7, 1947).
Comic artist/illustrator
In addition to painting, Albert Jaminon spent a large part of the 1940s and 1950s doing commercial art and cartooning. In 1947, for instance, he appeared in the final issues of Grand Coeur, a short-lived comic magazine created by the cartoonist Charles Gilbert and Étienne Lamarche, publisher of the newspaper La Gazette de Liège. Starting in issue #1 of 1947, Jaminon's historical comic serial 'Une Mission du Capitaine d'Artagnan' debuted, starring the musketeer D'Artagnan, who is sent on a special mission by the French king. However, the story remained unfinished due to the disappearance of Grand Coeur after issue #9.
Self-taught as an illustrator, his drawings also appeared in the magazines La Vie Illustrée and Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, the newspaper Het Belang van Limburg and the youth books of the publishing house Marabout. He also provided artwork to a book series published in the United Kingdom. In 1952, he appeared in Tintin magazine, illustrating the short text story 'Les Pans-Volants' by Jean-Pierre Norton. Later, in the early 1960s, Jaminon also provided cover illustrations to Tremplin, a devout Catholic children's magazine published by Éditions Averbode (and the French-language edition of the Flemish magazine Zonneland). Among his further comic stories are comic biography of Saint François d'Assise (publication unknown, presumably for Tremplin) and a couple of stories for the British girls' magazine Mirabelle (IPC).
Comic story for Mirabelle.
Teacher
In 1949, Jaminon began his teaching career at the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Liège, where he founded the Illustration course for advanced students. Among his students were the future comic creators Nic Broca, Roger Leloup and Mittéï (his distant cousin). Jaminon also taught drawing classes at the St. Roch Teacher Training College in Theux, as well as the Sclessin Cultural Center. In 1952, he went to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Léopoldville in Belgian Congo (present-day Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo), where he trained several internationally renowed Zairian painters. He stayed in Africa until Congo achieved independence from Belgium in 1960. Back in his home country, Jaminon continued his teaching career in Liège, this time at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he succeeded the painter Paul Daxhelet after his retirement.
Cover drawings for Tremplin (1961).
Painter
By 1950, Jaminon had also come to notice as a painter, taking part in a small group exhibition in the town hall of Flémalle, near Liège. Later that decade, he designed seven stained glass windows for the church of Ivoz-Ramet, a tympanum for the chapel of Lorcé-Chevron and a model of a church in Liège. Recurring elements in his early work were studies of the horse and human body, with use of mineral blue colors. Initially inspired by the Tuscan painter and sculptor Marino Marini, his sojourn in Africa resulted in a significant influence of African and Congolese art on his own work. During the 1970s and 1980s, he explored modernist movement, experimenting with collage and Pop Art. Later works of art were colorful depictions of the Breton coasts, Cuban or South American music and characters with almond-shaped Egyptian-type faces.
Animation
During the early 1960s, Jaminon was approached by Belvision, the animation studio of the publisher Le Lombard, to paint cartoon backgrounds. Alongside Bob De Moor and Mireille Vicat, he participated in the production of the 'Tintin' movies 'The Shooting Star', 'The Treasure of Red Rackam' and 'The Black Island', directed by Ray Goossens.
Final years and death
After his retirement from teaching, Albert Jaminon revisited several of his older works, attempting to improve, refresh or refine them. He died in Liège on 24 December 2006 at the age of 81. His sons Benoît Jaminon (1959-1988) and Olivier Jaminon (b. 1962) have both worked as illustrators and comic artists.
In April 2025, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Albert Jaminon's birth, the artist's youngest son Olivier curated a small overview exposition of his father's work at the Palace of Arlon.
Albert Jaminon.