Katia Granoff

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Katia Granoff (born July 16, 1895 in Mykolaiv , Russian Empire , as Jekaterina Fyodorovna Granova ; died April 16, 1989 in Paris ) was a French gallery owner and art dealer, poet and translator of Russian poetry. As one of the first art dealers, she exhibited paintings with water lily motifs by Claude Monet in her gallery , including Le Bassin aux Nymphéas in 1955 .

Live and act

Katia Granoff was born in the Ukraine to Théodore Granoff and Eudoxie Feldman. She was just sixteen when her parents died. Her legal guardians sent her and her sister Rose to Switzerland, where she studied literature and social sciences after graduating from high school.

In 1924 she moved to Paris and initially worked as a secretary for the Salon des Tuileries . In 1926 she opened her first art gallery in Paris on Boulevard Haussmann 166. She is considered to be the discoverer of young talents at the modern First École de Paris , including Marc Chagall and Othon Friesz .

In 1937 Katia Granoff was naturalized in France. When the German Wehrmacht occupied Paris , she, who was now considered to be Jewish, had to flee. With her sister, her nephew and the painter Georges Bouche (1874–1941) she fled to a medieval castle in La Voulte-sur-Rhône in the Ardèche . After the end of the Second World War , she opened two galleries: in Honfleur and in Cannes . She reopened her gallery in Paris in 1946 and another one on Place Beauvau in the 8th arrondissement . She was friends with the artist's son Michel Monet , from whom she acquired works from the late works of Claude Monet . Katia Granoff was one of the first gallery owners to exhibit Monet's paintings with water lily motifs, which had been largely unsaleable, including Le Bassin aux Nymphéas in 1955 .

Katia Granoff often exhibited female artists such as the painters Anne Français (1909–1995) and Édith Desternes (1901–2000) as well as the sculptor Chana Orloff , who, like her, was of Ukrainian origin. She also promoted late Impressionist painters , such as Georges Dufrénoy , and campaigned for the recognition of artists such as Chaim Soutine , Maurice Utrillo and Jean Dufy , without artists who remained unknown, such as the painter and engraver Pierre Laprade (1875–1931 / 32 ) or Emmanuel Mané-Katz , to be neglected.

In 1987 Katia Granoff withdrew from the art business. She left her gallery in Paris to her nephew, Pierre Larock, and his children, who continue to run it under the name Galerie Larock-Granoff to this day.

From the 1960s Katia Granoff worked as a writer. She translated Russian poetry into French and published an anthology of selected works and critical biographies by eighty-six Russian poets since the 18th century. She also wrote poems herself, which were published in several collections. Some of her poems were read by Pierre Brasseur and recorded on phonograms. In later years she wrote autobiographical texts and devoted herself to Judeo-Christian relations.

Works (selection)

  • Histoire d'une galerie , Paris 1949
  • Anthologie de la poésie russe du XVIII siècle à nos jours , Gallimard, Paris, 1961
  • La Colonne et la rose (poems), Seghers, Paris, 1966
  • Mémoires. Chemin de ronde (biography), Union générale d'édition, Paris 1976
  • Les amants maudits (poems), Union générale d'éditions, Paris 1979
  • Oeuvres complètes , C. Bourgois, Paris 1980
  • Ma Vie et mes rencontres (autobiography), Christian Bourgois, Paris, 1981

Awards from the Académie française

  • 1964: Prix Georges-Dupau (literature and philosophy) for Anthologie de la poésie russe
  • 1967: Prix François Coppée (poetry) for La Colonne et la Rose
  • 1977: Prix Heredia (sonnets) for Naguère

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personal data
SURNAME Granoff, Katia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Granowa, Ekaterina Fedorovna (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French gallery owner, poet and translator
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Mykolaiv , Ukraine
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1989
Place of death Paris