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Alex SMADJA (1897-1977)
A beautiful small oil on panel circa50. in its oak frame!
Born in Algeria, it was in front of the landscapes of Mostaganem, his native town, that young Alex experienced his first emotions and tried to transcribe them onto canvas.
Arriving in Paris in 1921, at the end of his secondary education, the self-taught young artist delivered cartoons to the press to pay his bills, while painting alone. He devoted himself in particular to portraits, a field in which he excelled, still lifes and landscapes, which he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and the Indépendants until his mobilization in 1939.
Discharged in 1940, the artist moved to Toulouse, where he lived until 1943, and where he made the leap to abstraction.
Definitely committed to abstraction at the end of the war, SMADJA returned to the capital and was one of the pioneers of "lyrical" abstraction, alongside his friends ATLAN, HARTUNG, SCHNEIDER, SOULAGES, DEYROLLE, Marie RAYMOND, etc., taking part in heated debates and conferences on this avant-garde art form.
His works of the 1950s, in which rhythmically undulating blacks give way to grays modulated with luminous whites and other sparing colors, were a great success at the time, and the painter exhibited in numerous galleries in France and abroad.
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