(19 October 1927 in Saint-Gilles-lez-Bruxelles - Belgium)
As a student of typography and illustration at the Ecole nationale d'architecture et des arts décoratifs de la Cambre (Brussels), he discovered in 1945 the work of Henri Michaux de Dubuffet, the Surrealists, and became friends with the art critic Jacques Putman.
In 1949, he met Dotremont and joined the Cobra movement that same year with Asger Jorn and Karel Appel) and was one of the most productive members until the dissolution of the movement in 1951. Alechinsky took part in the first International Cobra Exhibition at the Stedjelijk Museum in Amsterdam and in 1954 he met the Chinese painter Wallace Ting who would play an important role in the development of his work.
In the 1950s, the artist spent time in the Far East, then in the United States; he became interested in Japanese calligraphy and Action Painting, which would have a lasting influence on his work.
The artist produced a very large number of lithographs and engravings; passionate about books, he illustrated poems and texts (Cioran, Butor, Yves Bonnefoy, André Frénaud, Tardieu, etc.) and published numerous works.
In 1983, Alechinsky became professor of painting at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris.
Painter, draughtsman, sculptor and designer, Daniel Jacques Allonsius (1923 - 1995), was a student of He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris from 1940 to 1943, then at the École des Arts Appliqués in Fort-de-France from 1950 to 1951.
(Petropavlovsk, USSR then Kazakhstan: 18 July 1889 - Paris: 12 July 1974)
Painter, set designer, book illustrator and editor of the leading Russian art magazine Mir Iskusstva, Yury (or Juri) Annenkov studied art at St Petersburg University with Marc Chagall. He went to Paris in 1911 to work in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton. His first illustrated works were published in the late 1910s, including "Twelve" by Alexander Blok (1918), which is considered one of his masterpieces. In 1922, he published "Portraits", which contains 80 images of key figures in Russian art of the time. Forced to leave the Soviet Union for good in 1924, he lived first in Germany and then settled in Paris, where he was naturalised under the name Georges Annenkoff. He then continued his work as an artist, costume designer and set designer for around a hundred plays and ballets and some sixty films.
Geneviève Asse, real name Geneviève Bodin, born in Vannes on January 24, 1923, joined the École nationale des arts décoratifs in 1940 and exhibited at the Salon des moins de trente ans and the Salon d'automne.
After the war, where she joined the FFI, she joined the Groupe de L'Echelle and met Samuel Beckett, André Lanskoy, Serge Poliakoff, Serge Charchoune, Nicolas de Staël, Bram and Geer van Velde.
Geneviève Asse now divides her work between Paris and L'île aux Moines, and is considered one of the major artists of abstraction in France. She recently exhibited her engraved work at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (2002) and her "Peintures" at the Centre Pompidou (2013).
"Behind the horizon, the dawn, shaded greys, transparent ultramarine blues, whites that disappear in the grain of the canvas, nothing outside of time. "(Working Notes, 1974)
Since the late nineteenth century, France manages several colonies in Central Africa and particularly from 1882, the French Congo which includes the current Gabon and Republic of Congo. Born August 19, 1864 in Montpellier, Jean Audema was employed as an auxiliary in Congo in 1894, then postmaster in 1898, station chief in 1902, and was finally promoted to a colonial administrator in 1904. During this period he made numerous photos in Gabon, Congo and Chad between 1894 and 1912. A large part of his photographs were used for postcards distributed in France and which were a great success and soon collected.
The National Museum of African Art's Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives has made these precious time-documents available online.
And by comparing postcards and our photographs we note on postcards that show scarification the use of the same poses and accessories.
Jean Audema is considered today as one of the pioneers of photography in central Africa, his original photographs are of all rarities, such a set never appeared on the trade.
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