Clovis Trouille was an anti-religious and anarchist French painter who turned his frustrations into amazing paintings of surreal erotic fantasy. His service in the French army during WWI left him scarred and disillusioned with the authority figures who justified violence in order to maintain their power. So he came home, and after spending a few years painting mannequins in department stores, began painting blasphemous scenes of nuns and cardinals smoking and fucking. My personal favorite is called ’L’Immenculée Conception,’ a totally dirty, hot painting of church authorities going at it and really loving it – no guilt or piety to be found. These are images that would raise the ire of conservatives in 2016, so imagine the responsethey would illicit in the 1930s and 40s when Trouille was showing his work. Despite a cosign from Salvador Dali, Trouille never made it in the art world, but today – more than 40 years after his death – his work is hanging in the Grand Palais in Paris.
