Paul Jacoulet was a woodblock print artist born in Paris, France, in 1902. From the age of four, Jacoulet moved with his father to Tokyo. Showing a precocious artistic talent from a young age, Jacoulet began painting at eleven and studied with masters Kuroda Seiki, Fujishima Takeji, and Ikeda Terukata. 

In addition to his artistic talent, he mastered the violin and shamisen and collected various species of butterflies. In 1920, he accepted a position with the French embassy in Tokyo, but frail health forced him to resign. He thus pursued art full-time and, in 1929, made the first of many voyages to the South Pacific region, sketching and painting indigenous peoples. Several years later, in 1934, he arranged for Kazuo Yamagishi to assist in carving his first prints. Both Kazuo and Maeda Kentaro, two of the finest woodblock carvers in Japan, worked for Jacoulet throughout his career. Though he received ample assistance in carving, Jacoulet was entirely self-published (except for several prints by Kato Junji in 1934). But it was the period from 1939 to 1960 which would prove to be the most prolific, as Jacoulet produced an estimated one hundred and sixty-six prints, featuring partial and full-body portraits of South Sea islanders, Mongolians, Manchurians, Koreans, Ainu, and Japanese peoples. 

With the onset of WWII, Jacoulet was forced to evacuate to rural Karuizawa in 1941. A rather eccentric genius, Jacoulet often donned silk kimonos, face coated with rice powder make-up and touches of color to his lips, greeting guests to whom he displayed prints. Jacoulet continued to produce prints until 1960 when he passed away at the age of fifty-eight. Only prints for which he had subscription orders were printed, thus few designs were printed in full editions. Furthermore, Jacoulet's body of work is incredibly ornate; gold, silver, platinum, mica, mother of pearl, and semi-precious stones are among the many natural items blended into prints. This, coupled with the use of as many as three hundred blocks for a single print, Paul Jacoulet's work is highly detailed and utterly breathtaking and fetches relatively high prices on the open market. He counted among his most famous clientele General Douglas MacArthur, Pope Pius XII, President Truman, Greta Garbo, and Queen Elizabeth II.