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102
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Jacques AZEMA (Toulouse 1910 – Avignon 1979)
Scenes with hor…
See original version (French)
102
-
Jacques AZEMA (Toulouse 1910 – Avignon 1979)
Scenes with hor…
See original version (French)
Estimate €1,500 - €2,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Jacques AZEMA (Toulouse 1910 – Avignon 1979)
Scenes with horses, circa 1960
Gouache on board
7.5 x 16 cm (image area)
Signed lower left J. AZEMA
***
Gouache on board, signed lower left (3 × 6¼ in.)
Jacques Azéma (1910–1979) was a French painter whose career was spent almost entirely in Morocco. Trained at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, he soon abandoned his career as a set designer in favour of painting and writing. His early works, reminiscent of Cubism and Surrealism, earned him the attention of Michel Leiris and the friendship of André Gide, whose influence prompted him to leave Paris in 1930 to explore North Africa by motorbike, before settling in Marrakesh.
There he led a simple, solitary life, immersed in the medina, music and reading. He taught drawing at the Lycée Mangin, then from 1962 to 1974 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Casablanca under Mahjoub Benseddik, with Farid Belkahia as head of department. The new generation, drawn to abstraction, wrongly judged him to be academic.
Far removed from Orientalism, his work draws on Symbolism, Cubism and Surrealism: dreamlike, jewel-like paintings reminiscent of Giorgio de Chirico, with a warm palette and fragmented forms recalling Jean Hélion or Léopold Survage.
Long forgotten despite half a century of devotion to Morocco, Azéma is being rediscovered thanks to the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakech, which is dedicating its first retrospective to him from 27 October 2019 to 24 March 2020, *Jacques Azéma, a Poetic Adventure*, curated by Marie-Françoise Giacolette.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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