Michel Georges-Michel / Michel Georges Dreyfus (1883-1985), Flowers in a Vase
Oil on cardboard, 20.5 x 21.5 cm.
Signed in the lower left corner.
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Michel Georges-Michel (Italian: Michel Georges Dreyfus) - painter, journalist, novelist, art promoter - was born in Paris on November 3, 1883. He studied at the Paris Academy of Fine Arts and the École du Louvre, trained under Othon Friel and Raoul Dufy. From 1913 to 1929, he worked with Serge de Diaghilev's Russian Ballets. In 1917 he organized the first Picasso exhibition in Rome, and was co-organizer of the Soutine and Matisse exhibitions at the Venice Biennale. He initiated the first film festivals in France, and was a multi-year president of the Association of Dance Writers and Critics and vice-president of the French Art Press Association.
Georges-Michel wrote more than a hundred volumes, chronicles, reviews, memoirs and novels. Some of his works have lived to see cinema and television adaptations. One of his most famous books, Les Montparnos (1923), is set among the artistic bohemia in Montparnassie.
His paintings are in museums, including the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and the San Francisco Museum. He often painted still lifes - he was particularly fond of the motif of flowers in a vase - but among his best-known works are also portraits, primarily depicting famous painters, including Picasso and Modigliani.
[JR]
