André Hambourg
This sandbox is in the article namespace. Either move this page into your userspace, or remove the {{User sandbox}} template.
Constantin Kluge (1912 - 2003) was an award winning painter originally from Russia. Raised mostly in Manchuria and Beijing, Kluge eventually settled in Paris and became a French citizen. He is known for his French landscapes and romantic scenes of Paris.
Biography
Early life
Constantin Kluge was born on January 29, 1912 in Riga, once a large industrial port city in what was then the Russian Empire, and is now Latvia.
Family
His father, also Constantin, was a member of the Russian Army General Staff and a White Army sympathizer. His paternal grandfather spent years in France studying the cultivation of vines and wine making. Returning to Russia he developed a successful winery. His mother was an academic who came from a military family. She was a Professor of Literature, frequently teaching or leading schools throughout the family's travels.
The family moved often, following Constantin Sr.'s deployments with the counter rebellion armies. Each move seemed to take the family further and further east as the revolution spread and the White Sympathizers controlled a decreasing part of the country. Kluge credited both his parent for his curiosity in the world and interest in the cultural arts, including love of novels and playing of the cello. Painting would come later.
Manchuria & Beijing (1920 - 1931)
In the winter of 1919-1920, the family traveled via train to Harbin, Manchuria. Living in Manchuria, Kluge first discovered an interest in art while learning Chinese. Kluge enjoyed beauty of drawing the characters of Mandarin and proper technique for holding the brush.
Eventually, with the situation in Manchuria changing, the family moved to Beijing. At school in Beijing, Kluge was first introduced to formal art study, studying under the direction of the Russian artist Podgursky Chernomyrdin[1]. Although he demonstrated real talent as an artist, he would pursue architecture in France.
(He graduated from the French Municipal High School in Beijing in 1931)
France (1931 - 1938)
In Paris, Kluge earned admission into the École des Beaux Arts to study architecture, and in 1937 he earned his diploma.[2] His intention to had been to return to Beijing. However he was stymied by his to desire to paint the river banks, bridges, and streets of Paris he had come to love. Thus, only after finishing his architectural degree, did his interest in painting flourish. After six months of painting Paris, he returned east to Shanghai, not Beijing.
Shanghai (1938-1946)
In Shanghai, the turn world events helped force Kluge to paint. As an aspiring architect, he took a job in the office that processed building permits for the Shanghai French Concession. However with the outbreak of the war, building nearly ceased as raw materials were being confiscated by the Japanese for their military. Kluge filled his time with painting.
In 1946, with Mao Tse Tung was sweeping southward and foreigners were flooding out of Shanghai, Kluge moved to Hong Kong. There he took a job as an architect, despite the fact that painting had supported him and his family fact that his painting.
Hong Kong (1946 - 1950)
In Hong Kong, Kluge found plenty of work as an architect. However, he became disenchanted with the common practices in the building industry and he resolved to make painting his full-time pursuit.
During this period, Kluge became focused on his Christianity, and befriended several Jesuit missionaries including Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Pierre Leroy. Their correspondence and notes on their friendship are housed in the Georgetown University Library's special collections.[3]
Paris (1950 - 2003)
Fearing a Chinese Communist invasion, Kluge returned to France in 1950, and soon thereafter found representation in a Parisian gallery on Rue Saint-Honore. In 1964 he became a citizen of France. Kluge died on January, 9 2003 in France.
Personal life
Kluge was married three times and had one child, Michel. His first wife and child's mother was Tania de Liphart.
Public Collections
- Georgetown University, Washington D.C., View of Notre Dame (c. 1955, oil on canvas)
Major exhibitions
- 1951 - Salon de Paris
- 1961 - Salon des Artistes Francais
- 1961 - Wally Findlay Galleries: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles
- 1962 - Salon des Artistes Francais
- 1965 - Galerie Rive Gauche: Paris, France
- 1992 - Musée Antoine Vivenel, Compiègne, France[4]
Awards
- 1961 - Silver Medal, Salon des Artistes Francais
- 1961 - Salon des Artistes Francais, Taylor Foundation's Raymond Perreau Prize
- 1962 - Gold Medal, Salon des Artistes Francais
- 1990 - Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur[5]
Footnotes
- ^ Podgursky Chernomyrdin, graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
- ^ 1. The first public display of his art was also in 1937, in Shanghai, in which he exhibited paintings of the Chinese countryside.
- ^ The Constantin Kluge-Pierre Leroy collection consists primarily of 34 autograph signed letters from Fr. Leroy to his friend, the artist Constantin Kluge. Supplementing the Leroy-Kluge correspondence is a photocopy of a 15 page letter from Kluge to Nicholas Scheetz, Georgetown University Library Manuscripts Librarian, in which Kluge reminisces about Teilhard de Chardin and his circle. Completing the collection are a photocopy of an autograph inscription by Claude Rivière to Marie and Constantin Kluge; issue 10 of the Bulletin of the Association des Amis de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, featuring recollections by Kluge of Teilhard in Beijing during 1943. http://catalog.library.georgetown.edu/record=b3427246~S4
- ^ Société des artistes français, and Société nationale des beaux-arts, “Le Salon ... “: Paris, France (serial series covering years 1962-1963).
- ^ "ORDRE DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR Décret Du 31 Décembre 1989 Portant Promotion Et Nomination." Journal Officiel De La République Française 1 (Jan 2, 1990): 24. <http://legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000343022>.
References
- Société des artistes français, and Société nationale des beaux-arts, “Le Salon ... “: Paris, France (serial series covering years 1962-1963).
- "KLUGE, Constantin." Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. <http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00099489>.
- Constantin Kluge; "Constantin Kluge;" Paris France, 1987.
- "ORDRE DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR Décret Du 31 Décembre 1989 Portant Promotion Et Nomination." Journal Officiel De La République Française 1 (Jan 2, 1990): 24. <http://legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000343022>.