Georges Émile Marie Villa was a French designer, caricaturist, engraver, lithographer and illustrator. The second and last child of General Désiré Villa and Julia Perdrix, Georges Villa regularly changed his place of residence according to his father’s military postings (Montmédy, Saint-Cyr, Bazoille-sur-Meuse, Rouen). After studying in Rouen (at the Pension Rivage institution), he frequented the artistic world of Montmartre upon his arrival in Paris in 1901, enrolled in courses at the Académie Julian and then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1904, a year after his father’s death and the end of his military service, and exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français. An excellent portraitist, he became friends with Lieutenant-Colonel Osnobichine, the Russian military attaché in Paris, who invited him to Nice where he painted numerous portraits of Russian princes and officers. In 1905, he was invited to Russia by Grand Duke Vladimir, uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, to paint portraits of officers. In 1908, he accompanied a Russian archaeological mission to Darfur, Fadocha and then on the Nile in Egypt. Living in Russia when the Great War broke out, Georges Villa took part in the First World War and joined France as a reserve officer, then became a second lieutenant in 1915 where he was wounded by a shell fragment in April at Les Eparges. Wanting to continue fighting, he began training at the Military Aviation School in Chartres. Having qualified, he was assigned to a fighter squadron as a pilot officer and ended the conflict as a captain. After the war, he married Léone Bécus, originally from Illoud , whom he had met while visiting the wounded during the Great War in the region. From then on, he spent every summer in this village in Haute-Marne. He began his career as an illustrator, mainly with humorous drawings and three favorite subjects: aviation , fencing and eroticism. He collaborated with numerous newspapers and magazines such as L’Illustration and opinion journals of the national right (Le Petit Journal; La Liberté, directed by Pierre Taittinger) or fascist (Le Nouveau Siècle by Georges Valois). He signed numerous illustrations of menus and advertising posters (notably for the Cadum soap brand or Balnéa clothing) or shows (the music hall in particular). He also illustrated books such as L’Île des Pingouins by Anatole France in 1922, Le Capitaine Fracasse by Théophile Gautier in 1935, Contes fantastiques by Edgar Allan Poe in 1938, and Aphrodite by Pierre Lou s. Finally, he used his talents to promote aviation: Georges Villa produced propaganda posters for the Air Ministry, notably for the 1931 colonial exhibition. He was named among the first Air Painters in 1931. At the same time, he produced thousands of erotic drawings, in the spirit of 18th-century Romanticism. Georges Villa was a figure of Montmartre during the Roaring Twenties, known for his caricatures and portraits, as well as for his erotic drawings with realism enhanced by the use of charcoal and pastel. The Montmartre Museum preserves one of his pastels, Inside the Agile Rabbit. He was part of the Mortigny circle, founded by Dimitri d’Osnobichine in 1908, which brought together many artists and regulars of Parisian life, a circle which operated until the 1950s. During the Second World War, Georges Villa and his family decided to reside permanently in Haute-Marne, in Illoud. He notably recounts in his drawings the Phoney War (notably the mobilization after the Munich Agreements with the Drummer Woman). He was appointed trustee of the peasant corporation as a large landowner and managed in particular the shortages and the requisition requests of the Germans. However, he was close to members of the Haute-Marne resistance and then he followed the Second Moroccan Infantry Division during the Liberation of France, notably in Alsace as an official painter. After the war, Georges Villa resumed his artistic activities and, thanks to his many acquaintances in the cultural, gastronomic, military and political world, was a member of countless associations and salons of high society (Le Cornet, a literary association; he was secretary of the Friends of Léandre paying homage to the painter Charles Léandre; L’Aéro-Club de France; founder of Les Compagnons de la Belle Table, a gastronomic association with the critic Curnonsky; etc.). A Knight of the Legion of Honour, he is also the author of a novel, Infirmerie spéciale, published in 1953.