Am seeking any information on the French Napoleonic illustrator - uniformologist Jack Gibral. His place and date of birth and death, etc..

Yes it is...

Here is his eulogy by Pierre de Biéville in the CFFH bulletin 1972, issue #5 (last one). I actually did not know he was born in Vierzon as I assumed he was a 100% parisian...

Some more notes on Jack Girbal. Unlike Rousselot or Leliepvre we have little on Girbal as he was neither a formally trained artist nor was his artist work his official job.

As the eulogy states, he was young when the war broke out, had not been called up for service. He ended up spending part of the war in the STO (Service du Travail Obligatoire) which was forced labour for young frenchmen who were sent to Germany to support the war effort. After the war these were known as "déportés STO" (deported STO). He had a natural gift for drawing and painting, but in those days there were very few opportunities in such activities and his father convinced him to pursue other interests offering more financial stability (I can echo this very well as my father was in exactly a similar case in the early 1950s). Post-war France offered few prospects for anything else than industry or administration. In the eulogy, it is indicated he worked for an export company. I know he also worked for the "colonies minister" as a low level clerk. He continued to tarin himself in art by attending evening classes (again something very common in those days).

The late Christian Terana who started in the hobby around 1958-1959 had met him and gave me a few colourful stories about Girbal. He was very much a ladies men and thoroughly enjoyed Pigalle and Monmartre nightlife, which indeed was quite something by all accounts. He ended up marrying a dancing girl from one of the clubs, hoping to continue "painting the town in red", but as often she was quite happy to settle down into a very placid family life. As with other artists of those days he "committed" some erotic and pornographic work inspired by what he observed. Terana actually owned a full notebook which was devoted to the history of the conquest of Parisian ladies by the French soldier...which he showed to me and that sparked the discussion on Girbal. As a low-leve civil servant, Girbal would spend a good portion of his time working not on his job, but on art work and figures whch he had on commission from customers. One of them was a top level official who actually told Girbal it was a shame someone of his intelligence and gift was at such a low level. To this Girbal insisted on NOT being promoted as he simply wanted to be left alone in his place...as it gave him ample time and space to spend time fulfilling customers' orders !

Girbal, like de Beaufort was not an official artist and so he indeed worked on commissions for customers and published nothing on his own. Although he is mainly known today for the Hourtoulle plates, this was not his initial main occupation in the hobby.

Pierre de Biéville contracted him early on in the late 1950s or early 1960s to be the designer of master figures for SEGOM. SEGOM is almost totally forgotten today but it was a precursor of Historex and for quite sometime its competitor. SEGOM figures were 54mm plastic kits which used a softer, less crisp, cheaper plastic than Historex. SEGOM figures were mainly 1st Empire, but there were also parts which enabled one to produce 18th century figures. The main advantage SEGOM figures had came precisely from Girbal's design. The heads, torso, legs were exactly what one can see in a Girbal drawing - extremely life like and did not have the rigidity Historex figures would have. Girbal had also insisted on producing both heavy and light cavalry horses (something Historex did not do, offering just superb but inadequate thoroughbred horses). Girbal also produced the small postcard format information sheet whihc came with each kit.

In the early 1960s Girbal also contributed to Jacques Brouillet's work on the armies of the Egyptian expedition. Several of these cards were signed by Girbal. Likewise, as his reputation grew, he produced plates for the SCFH bulletin.

At about the same time, Dr. François-Guy Hourtoulle who was 4 years younger than him contacted him to work on what became the Hourtoulle plates series. Girbal's original work for the plates is simply incredible. The 2nd book edition by H&C does adequate tribute to his work, as the original plates although extremely well produced with stencil printing did not have the full brilliance and subtlety of his gouache work.

Belmont-Maitland also commissioned from him several works which were featured as covers for Tradition magazine..

In 1970 or 1971, he was diagnosed with cancer. By chance one of the top surgeon-oncologist in France at that time was none other than Dr. Hourtoulle. Hourtoulle had him go for surgery to investigate the disease. His conclusion was unfortunately dire. There were no options and he had but a year to live. He told Ms Girbal that her husband was to enjoy that year as much as he could, and that he would no longer be there a year from now. This is exactly what happened.

As far as I know, Girbal worked very much on his own and had little to no contact with Rousselot, Leliepvre, RIGO (Albert Rigondaud) who were the other "big" artists of the time.

I do know he also did some oil paintings as I saw one in 1973 during a CFFH exhibit in Les Invalides, it showed Napoleon entering a town in 1813 or 1814 being cheered by wounded soldiers.

SEGOM continued producing their line of figures, including a brand new 30mm line which Girbal had designed just before his death, but gradually they moved on more to tin flat figures.

SEGOM figures were massively used by Abbot R.Ducoin for his impressive dioramas which are now in the Compiegne historical figures museum. Some of those dioramas are actually inspired by Hourtoulle-Girbal plates.

I believe this is the most I have - unfortunately many collectors from those days are now gone and few have left on paper their stories. One can look up Hourtoulle's 2nd edition from H&C where he describes in detail how he was designing those plates. As stated Hourtoulle was also a prominent figure in medical circles AND a former WW2 resistance veteran AND Indochina veteran. He did write up several volumes of memoirs on this.