Abram Krol, Polish French Ecole de Paris Mid Century Modernist Oil Painting Clown Juggler, c.1950s

Details

Description

Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Hand signed lower ledt Oil on Canvas Abram … Read more Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Hand signed lower ledt Oil on Canvas Abram Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the University of Caen. In 1939 at the beginning of World War II he joined the Foreign Legion. After he was demobilized, he became a mechanic in a garage in Avignon. Although Jewish, he survived the war with a false identity. In 1943, Krol started studying to be an artist, taking courses in sculpture at the city’s School of Fine Art. He also began studying painting and self-described himself as a “Sunday painter.” Krol moved to Paris in 1944. The first exhibition of his work was in 1946 in the Katia Granoff Gallery in Paris. After the war, Krol took up engraving, studying that art form with an engraver he met in Paris. Krol reflected his Hasidic childhood often using Biblical themes in his art works. He said, During all my years of childhood I had read the Bible endlessly. I came back to the Bible because I was on solid ground there. It was part of the assertion of my own truth after a time of complacency. It seemed to me that in painting or engraving there were so many reefs to avoid, so many possibilities of setback, that I had to have all the odds in my favor do what I could—say what I had to say. Krol illustrated over 20 literary works from the late 1940s through the 1960s. He also engraved medals for the Paris mint and painted murals for schools in France. He designed tapestries and painted approximately 200 enamels. Museums and libraries which own Krol’s art works include the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the British Museum; Houghton Library, Harvard; Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Krol has had numerous one-man shows throughout Europe, Brazil, and in California. In 1960, Krol was invited to the Venice Biennale. He was awarded the Critics Prize in 1958. He also won the Feneon Prize among other honors. Krol died on October 9, 2001. The School of Paris, Ecole de Paris, was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a center of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940 the city drew artists from all over the world and became a centre for artistic activity. School of Paris was used to describe this loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centered in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse. Before World War I, a group of expatriates in Paris created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. The term "School of Paris" was used in 1925 by André Warnod to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris. The term soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists—many of whom were Jewish—as a threat to the purity of French art. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism", Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the School of Paris name "allows any artist to pretend he is French. it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it. The artists working in Paris between World War I and World War II experimented with various styles including Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism and Dada. Foreign and French artists working in Paris included Jean Arp, Joan Miro, Constantin Brancusi, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, artists from Belarus like Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, and Jacques Lipchitz, the Polish artist Marek Szwarc and others such as Russian-born prince Alexis Arapoff. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse. The core members were almost all Jews, and the resentment expressed toward them by French critics in the 1930s was unquestionably fueled by anti-Semitism. Jewish members of the group included Emmanuel Mané-Katz, Chaim Soutine, Adolphe Féder, Chagall, Moïse Kisling, Maxa Nordau and Shimshon Holzman. The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme has works from School of Paris artists including Pascin, Kikoine, Soutine, Chana Orloff and Jacques Lipchitz. See less