Trompe L’oeil Gift Guides

Le jeu de l'oisif
Think of these paintings by Jacques Poirier (1928-2002) as “found” gift guides His trompe l’oeil extravaganzas are crammed with such a dizzying quantity and variety of objects that you’re bound to hit on some gift solutions while studying them.

Poirier put aside his successful career as an illustrator when he was in his early fifties, and devoted himself full time to painting. The world on which he trains his hyper-realism is part junk-drawer-on-steroids and part prop closet of William Harnett and Joseph Cornell. He’s known for embedding puns, anagrams and rebuses into his elaborate works--efforts which, are completely lost on me, since they are in French. You can see more of his work here(where these images are mostly from), and you can read more about his background here.

There is no site for Poirier's illustrations, but you can look at some of his illustrated book covers at Antiqbook, where I did a search for his illustrations.

Hopefully, between the balls of twine, glass orbs, playing cards, doll fragments, scrimshaw and bits of hardware, you’ll at least find inspiration.

Labels link to the product, clockwise:

Scrimshaw book, giant jacks,
antique-games book,
Ikebana shears, game of jacks,
bust of Thomas Jefferson,
fuzzy dice, Scrabble.


Coquillages

Pencil sharpener, shell print,
crank sharpener, Shell Chic,
kraft paper pads, electric sharpener,
crow-quill pens, calligraphy book,
Speedball ink.


Artnica

Binoculars, pipe, tape measure,
magnet, gazing ball


Le vol d'Icare

Crane, Radio Flyer red wagon,
Lego architecture, Erector Set


Histoire d'h

Eco edition playing cards, sealing wax set,
leather driving gloves, Michelin Guide,
alphabet nesting blocks


Le cavalier seul

Faux storage books, book clock,
horse mannequin, Dr. Seuss's ABC


Then again, there's always Chanukah gelt (or gift cards, as they call it today).