The beginnings of success
Following the end of his military service, Soulas became highly prolific and highly successful in his field.
He engraved portraits, landscapes, and exhibited his prints in many art galleries. He also illustrated many books. In 1927, he engraved wood from his own drawings for Le Moulin du Frau by Eugène Le Roy, and the same year he came back to etching by self-publishing a collection of twenty five engravings entitled Ceux de la Terre, in which he portrayed striking and massive silhouettes of farmers from the Beauce area which he knew so well.
In 1928, he worked on woods for Raboliot by Maurice Genevoix and Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac; in 1929 he engraved linocuts for Dominique by Eugène Fromentin. In 1930 he published Domme en Périgord, a series of copper engravings. Then up to 1932 he engraved woods based on illustrations by Deluermoz for le Livre de la Jungle and le Second Livre de la Jungle by Kipling as well as for Nomades du Nord by Curwood. In 1934, he engraved drawings by Pavis for Les Croix de Bois by Dorgelès. He also engraved numerous woodcuts, portraying writers and musicians, and representing landscapes.
In 1935, he published la Gerbe Noire. This latest self-edited work was an anthology of his own poems illustrated with fourteen burins and one engraved wood. He also illustrated Bécasse by Reveilhac and Contes et Légendes by Jeanne Fabre.
In 1928 Soulas was also hired as an engraver at la Banque de France, where he worked until 1935.
At a preview, Soulas met Simone Domergues, a young art student whom he married in May 1933. They had six children from 1934 to 1948.
The young couple lived in Paris for five years where Soulas owned a studio on rue de Vaugirard. These years were full of unremitting and passionate work and were marked by a growing favorable issue: illustrations of several novels, Grand prix of the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Grand Prix of engraving at the Universal Exhibition of Warsaw, selection to represent French engraving at the Biennale of Venice in 1938, Prix de la jeune gravure, regular participations at the Salon d'Automne, Les Indépendants and the Salon National Indépendant in Paris.