Georges Malkine

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Georges Alexandre Malkine (born October 10, 1898 in Paris , † March 22, 1970 ibid) was a French artist and actor who was associated with the surrealist movement .

Life

Malkine in the surrealist movement

The Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, where Malkine grew up

Georges Malkine grew up in the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine in the 5th arrondissement ; his father Jacques Malkine was Russian and came from Odessa . The violinist came to Paris in 1893. George's mother Ingeborg Magnus came to Paris from Copenhagen to perfect her violin playing and to become a concert musician. After their marriage in 1898, they took French citizenship. After primary school, Georges Malkine attended the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, then the Lycée Condorcet. He took violin lessons from his father before switching to the piano. While his parents were on concert tours, he lived with his aunt Gerda, a pianist, in Boulogne-sur-Mer . During the First World War he was drafted in 1917 and served at the front in the Ardennes , where he was wounded in early 1918. In the Parisian hospital Val-de-Grâce he met Guillaume Apollinaire and in 1919 the young Claude-André Puget know.

After her mother died in 1919 from complications from tuberculosis , Malkine traveled to Africa; After his return to Paris, Malkine, who had already started painting at the age of fifteen, got by with odd jobs, successively as a violinist, factory worker, soldier, photographer, tie seller, bank clerk, proofreader, actor, fitter of fairground carousels and divers.

Malkine's friend Robert Desnos (1924)

In 1921 he decided to seriously deal with painting and destroyed all of his previously realized works. In 1922 he met Robert Desnos , with whom he had a deep friendship for many years; through Desnos he finally met Louis Aragon , André Breton and Paul Éluard , with whom he dealt with the ideas of Dadaism . In 1923 he found employment with a municipal company in Nice and stayed in close correspondence with Desnos. In 1924 Malkine began to become increasingly involved in the surrealist movement; he was the first painter to write automatique texts for the first edition of the magazine La Révolution Surréaliste , which appeared in December 1924. At the request of André Breton, he created the logo for the sheet. From Nice in 1925 he wrote a second text for number 4 of the La Révolution Surréaliste . That year he met Francis Picabia in Cannes , later in Paris, where he met Jacques Prévert , Marcel Duhamel and Yves Tanguy ; in Nice he met André Breton and his wife Simone , as well as André Masson , Georges Neveux and Max Morise . In November, at the suggestion of Robert Desnos, he exhibited his drawings for the first time at an exhibition of the Surrealists in the Galerie Pierre in Paris.

In the mid-1920s he was part of the group of artists (such as Joan Miró ) at 45 Rue Blomet in Paris, where he shared a studio with Robert Desnos after living in Paris again in 1926. During this time he met the actress Caridad de Laberdesque, who appeared in Luis Buñuel's The Golden Age in 1930 . After first illustrating a long poem by Desnos, The Night of Loveless Nights , he created the paintings The Night of Love (1926, La Nuit de l'amour ) and The Ecstasy , which appeared in La Révolution Surréaliste , as well as his work La Vallée de Chevreuse, L'Espoir and Sénégal ; his painting Magie Blanche was acquired by Louis Aragon. Malkine also wrote an article for Paris-Soir entitled La peinture d'exploration , in which he explains his artistic conception.

In January 1927 the Galerie Surréaliste dedicated a successful exhibition to him; his paintings were acquired by Breton, Aragon, Charles-François Baron , Jacques Doucet and Nancy Cunard . Another exhibition took place in 1928 at the Au Sacre du Printemps gallery . The tensions in the group of surrealists led to the departure of Desnos, Prévert, Raymond Queneau and Masson. Malkine himself decided to travel to Tahiti , where he met the American Yvette Ledoux, with whom he returned to Paris; the couple married in February 1930. His friendship with Desnos had cooled; During this time he was in contact with Antonin Artaud , Georges Neveux and Claude-André Puget . In 1930 Man Ray photographed him kissing his wife; In the background of the photo you can see Robert Desnos and the sculptor André Lasserre . Although Malkine was still able to sell works, his economic situation had worsened. In 1931 he was among the signatories of a petition entitled Front Rouge , with which the Surrealists took a position against Louis Aragon.

Malkine shot La Dame de Malacca (1937) with Marc Allégret (left, with André Gide , 1920 )

In 1932 Malkine met the poet, critic and art historian Patrick Waldberg (1913–1985) know; the friendship lasted until the end of his life. In 1933 he had another exhibition in the Clausen Gallery , but he now ended his activities as a painter. At the side of Danielle Darrieux , Pierre Blanchar , Michèle Morgan and Jean Gabin he worked from 1933 to 1941 in films a. a. by Billy Wilder ( Mauvaise graine 1934), Christian-Jaque , Marc Allégret , Marcel L'Herbier , Louis Daquin , Georges Lacombe , Jacques Feyder , Jean Grémillon , Leopold Hainisch and Robert Siodmak . In 1937 Georges and Yvette Malkine met the Japanese artist Yozo Hamaguchi (1909–2000), with whom they lived for a while in Haiti ; During this time Yvette Malkine became addicted to heroin and alcohol. Malkine himself was addicted to opium after his return to Paris in 1938 .

In September 1939, Georges Malkine escaped being mobilized into the army for health reasons; When the war broke out, Yvette decided to return to her family in New York; Georges made his way as a dock worker, later as a worker in a biscuit factory in Marseille and as a showman in Paris. From 1941 he was active in the Resistance , in December 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo , tortured and interned in a labor camp near Berlin .

The post-war years

After the war, Malkine's health deteriorated. He was devastated when he found on his return to Paris that his previous works and sketches had been destroyed; He was also shocked by the death of his friend Robert Desnos in June 1945. In the same year his wife Yvette also died of tuberculosis in New York. From 1946 Malkine worked as a designer of book covers , then as an editor. During this time he was in contact with the author and anarchist May Picqueray and her daughter Sonia Niel , with whom he entered into a relationship. He took a small role in a play by Roger Vitrac , alongside Juliette Gréco and Michel de Ré . At this stage his friend Sonia encouraged him to paint again. On March 18, 1948, after their daughter Monelle had been born in February 1947, they married their son Gilles in November 1948.

At the end of 1948, the couple decided to move to New York City with their children ; they lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood . Malkine worked as a painter, at the same time he wrote the novel A bord du Violon de mer , which he had already started in Paris in the summer of 1947. The third child, Fern, was born in April 1950, followed by Shayan in December 1951. Although Malkine was not fully satisfied with his new work, he exhibited in 1955 at the Weingarten Gallery in Manhattan . In 1956 Sonia moved with the children to their house in Shady near Woodstock , which they had bought in 1953; Sonia then lived in Woodstock, where she was one of the co-founders of the Woodstock Folk Festival .

Malkine stayed in New York to concentrate fully on his painting. The works Narcissus and Dimanche emerged , which were exhibited in Woodstock galleries at the end of 1960 without any success. In 1962 his work was shown in Paris at a retrospective de surrealists in the Charpentier gallery. In 1966 he stayed in Paris again and showed a new series of pictures. There he again came into contact with Claude-André Puget , Yozo Hamaguchi, Georges Neveux, Jacques Prévert, André Breton, Louis Aragon, André Masson and Max Ernst ; Patrick Waldberg organized an exhibition in the Mona Lisa Gallery, which was a great sales success, as did the exhibition in the Salon de Mai in the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1967 , and then in the Laporte Gallery in Antibes . Despite his illness, Malkine continued to paint; at last he lived in seclusion in Sceaux , then in rue Blondel in Paris. In 1968 his work was shown in Belgium in a group exhibition entitled Trésors du Surréalisme . In 1970 the Musée d'Art Moderne in the Center Pompidou acquired his work La Fête ; his friend Patrick Waldberg published a monograph. Georges Malkine died shortly after completing his last picture, La Mer, on March 22, 1970, of a stroke.

The eldest son Gilles Malkine is active as a musician and composer, he appeared in 1969 with Tim Hardin at the Woodstock Festival and worked for many years with the poet Mikhail Horowitz ; Monelle Malkine-Richmond is also a musician. His daughter Fern Malkine-Falvey worked as a journalist, translator and correspondent for Paris Match ; she wrote a biography about her father and advised the Museum Pavillon des Arts in Paris on a retrospective of his work.

plant

Georges Malkine left an oeuvre of almost 500 works. André Breton said of Malkine's work on Patrick Waldberg:

«Il a poussé l'individualisme jusqu'a l'impertinence! Mais quel art dans l'expression de l'indicible chaque fois qu'il voulait s'en thunder la peine! »

“He drove individualism to the point of insolence. But what an art in expressing the unspeakable, every time he tried to! "

- André Breton

Paintings (selection)

  • La Nuit de l'amour, 1926
  • Attraction, 1926
  • L'Orage, 1926
  • Magic Blanche, 1926
  • Reve au Long Cours, 1926
  • Le meringue, 1927
  • La femme tatouée, 1929
  • Les Plus Beaux Yeux Du Monde Ont Connu Nos Pensees, circa 1929
  • Ce que j'ai vu dans cet oeuil, 1931
  • Nicole, around 1956
  • Kuala Lumpur, around 1958
  • Narcissus et Dimanche, 1959
  • La Marchande de pomme de terre, ca.1961
  • Tera Tupapau, 1962
  • Dimanche soir, 1966
  • Demeure d'Automne de Maurice Ravel, 1966
  • Demeure de Robert Desnos, 1966
  • Demeure d'Andre Breton, 1967
  • La Sirene, 1968
  • Le Piano de Calais, 1969
  • La Mer, 1970

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1925: Paris, Galerie Pierre : La peinture surréaliste
  • 1926: Paris, Galerie surréaliste.
  • 1927: Paris, Galerie surréaliste (solo exhibition)
  • 1928: Paris, Galerie au Sacre du printemps : Le surréalisme existe-t-il?
  • 1929: Zurich, Kunsthaus : Surrealism, exhibition of abstract and surrealist painting and sculpture.
  • 1933: Paris, Galerie Else Clausen (solo exhibition)
  • 1947: New York, Museum of Modern Art : Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism
  • 1955: New York, Weingartner Gallery.
  • 1960: Woodstock, Polari Gallery.
  • 1962: New York, Long Island University (solo exhibition)
  • 1963: Woodstock, Rudolf Gallery
  • 1964: Paris, Charpentier Gallery: Le surréalisme, sources, histoires, affinités
  • 1965: Basel, Kunstmuseum : Aspects of Surrealism
  • 1966: Paris, Galerie Mona Lisa (solo exhibition)
  • 1967: Paris, salon de may.
  • 1968: Paris and Havana, Salon de mai; Knokke-Le-Zoute, Belgium, Tresors du surréalisme
  • 1969: Paris, Galerie Mona Lisa (solo exhibition)
  • 1970: Brussels, Galerie Govaerts: Georges Malkine
  • 1971: Galerie des Beaux-Arts: Le surréalisme
  • 1972 Paris, Galerie Lucie Weil (solo exhibition)
  • 1972: Musée des Arts décoratifs (Paris) : Le surréalisme 1922-1942 Munich, House of Art : The Surrealism
  • 1973: Paris, Galerie de Seine: “Collection fantôme de Phillipe Soupault.”
  • 1978: London, Hayward Gallery: “Dada and Surrealism Reviewed.”
  • 1982: Woodstock, Kleinert Gallery: Georges Malkine
  • 1986: Venice Biennale : Art and Alchemy
  • 2004: Paris, Les Yeux Fertiles gallery: Georges Malkine
  • 1990: New York, Herstand Gallery and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt , Surrealism from Paris to New York
  • 1995: Paris, Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris : Passions privées
  • 1997: Paris, Pavillon des Arts: Surrealism et l'amour
  • 1999: Paris, Pavillon des Arts: Georges Malkine: Le Vagabond du surréalisme
  • 1999: Guggenheim Museum , New York: ... Surrealism, Two Private Eyes: the Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections
  • 1989: Milan, Palazzo Reale : Il Surrealismo; Woodstock, NY, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum; Montreuil, musée de l'Hôtel de Ville: Phillipe Soupault, le voyage magnetique.
  • 2014: Woodstock, NY, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum: Georges Malkine: Perfect Surrealist Behavior

Filmography

  • 1933: L'Ange gardien
  • 1934: Mauvaise graine
  • 1934: L'Or
  • 1934: love, death and the devil
  • 1935: Le Diable en bouteille
  • 1936: The First Offence
  • 1936: Un de la légion
  • 1937: La Dame de Malacca
  • 1938: La Tragédie impériale
  • 1938: SOS Sahara
  • 1938: Le Joueur
  • 1939: Le Corsaire
  • 1939: Derrière la façade ( Secret in the Secret Annex )
  • 1939: La Tradition de minuit
  • 1939: La Loi du nord ( The Law of the North )
  • 1939: Pièges ( girl trafficker )
  • 1940: A little night music
  • 1940: Les Musiciens du ciel
  • 1941: Remorques ( The Hurricane )

publication

  • A Bord Du Violon De Mer. Editions de La Difference, 1977. ISBN 2-7291-0017-2 (2-7291-0017-2)

Web links

literature

  • Adam Biro et René Passeron, Dictionnaire général du surréalisme et de ses environs , Office du Livre, Friborg, Suisse et Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1982. Notice biographique d' Edouard Jaguer
  • Béatrice Riottot el-Habib, Vincent Gille, Georges Malkine - Le Vagabond du Surréalisme , catalog de l'exposition du Pavillon des Arts, Paris Musées, 1999; ISBN 978-2-87900-448-8
  • Vincent Gille, Georges Malkine le vagabond du Surréalisme . Catalog de la première exposition rétrospective, au Pavillon des Arts. Paris, 1999.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i Dossier Malkine in leMondedesArts.com
  2. Woodstock Folk Fest, Part III: Sonia Malkine
  3. Lebel / Sanouillet / Wald Berg: Surrealism. Cologne, Taschen Verlag 1987, p. 169 f.
  4. Notes at Remue.net
  5. Ronni Gordon: Artist moves out of father's shadow (2002) ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.masslive.com