You wish to be alarmed for any new work by this artist? Please enter your email.
-
Read biography ARTIST ALARM
Biography of Sam Szafran
Born into a Jewish family of Polish origin, Sam Szafran is born in Paris in 1934. Between traditionalist family life and the school of the street, he experiences a difficult childhood in the context of the war; hidden child, almost all his family is exterminated in the camps. After some years of exile in Australia, he returns to France in 1951. He enrolls in evening classes in drawing from the City of Paris. Szafran discovers his true place of adoption with Montparnasse. In 1953, he studies at the “Académie de la Grande Chaumière” and follows the course of Henri Goetz; he makes the acquaintance of Jean Ipoustéguy, then the Spaniards Orlando Pelayo and Antoni Clave. The meeting of Django Reinhardt in St Germain des Pres is the reason for his passion for jazz. The friendship with the sculptors plays a large role in defining the art of Szafran: Roseline Granet, from 1954, and later, Diego and Alberto Giacometti, Raymond Mason, Joseph Erhardy. Influenced by Nicolas de Staël and Jean-Paul Riopelle, he paints his first abstract paintings. He meets Yves Klein at Colette Allendy then Tinguely and Paolo Vallorz. In 1958, Sam Szafran leaves the field abstraction to figuration, a period of great poverty that lasted until 1965. In 1960 he abandons painting in oil, now to devote to pastels. Jacques Kerchache offers him his first solo exhibition in 1965. His art is gradually recognized. The year 1986 marks the beginning of Szafran large watercolors on the theme of "Workshops", of "Greenhouses " and "Stairway".