Fondation jean carzou biography
Carzou was the most famous Armenian painter in France with a unique style of painting.
He was born Karnig Zouloumian on January 1, 1907, in Aleppo (Syria), then part of the Ottoman Empire. He first studied at the school of the Marist Fathers and then, when he moved to Cairo in 1919, he went to the Kaloustian School. His brilliant academic performance earned him a scholarship and he moved to Paris in 1924, after graduation, to study architecture.
He graduated from the School of Architecture in 1929. He created his name from the first syllables of his name and surname, to which he added the French name Jean, but he always kept close to his Armenian roots and Armenian life. However, he abandoned architecture for the fine artist. He started working as a theater decorator but quickly realized he preferred drawing and painting. He worked as a street artist to support himself, and his sketches of politicians and public figures found their way into Parisian newspapers.
| Cannes, Le Suquet |
John M. ARMLEDER, JEAN CARZOU -
Press release
“… This is why I stubbornly celebrate artists judged to be minors, Jean Carzou for example because I think that fundamentally Malevich without Carzou would not exist. To tell the truth, I have a capacity for sympathy for just about everything… I don’t believe in the question of good and bad taste. Somehow, these forms of disqualifications alert me to the extent that I am convinced that these are the same reasons or the same ingredients that will make it possible to celebrate or discredit such and such a work. For an artistic object it is the same mechanics, the same scheme. Between the added value and the diminished value, the judgment proceeds from exactly the same principles, there is no difference”. John Armleder. Contemporary creation. Flammarion.
The young Karnik Zouloumian, born in Syria in Aleppo in 1907, moved to Egypt with his Armenian family, pursued brilliant studies in Cairo. At 23 he went to Paris to study at the Special School of Architecture, he graduated in 1930, made “circles and squares” in Montparnasse, became Jean Carzou for the sake of integration. In a very short time with his dreamlike sets of the Comédie Française, the theater sets of the 1950s, the artisan painter Jean Carzou became one of the greatest figures in the world of art: a “house hold name”. In 1955, the magazine Savoir des Arts ranked him among the ten most important painters of his generation.
His graphic style, sharp, acquires immense popularity – we are in the 60s and 70s – from which no French artist will benefit since. Spearhead of figuration while at the same time Georges Mathieu and Victor Vasarely reign over abstraction. It is to these three “trademark” artists, to these three creators of style that the RTL radio station proposes to design the new design of the rue Bayard facade in Paris. In 1972, the RTL station chose Vasarely’s Op Art motif, which clearly ill Jean Carzou 让卡尔祖 1907 On January 1st, Karnik Zouloumian was born in ALEP in Syria, of Armenian parents.They had left Armenia because their families disapproved of their union. He was only ten when his father, a photographer, died. After that, he left Syria with his mother and sister, to settle in Egypt where his mother's family lived. 1924 He obtained an American scholarship (Yeghiayan Foundation), to go and study in Paris at the "École Spéciale d’Architecture". 1929 He graduated in. He often went to the Louvre where Ingres' paintings inspired him to become a painter 1930 His first exhibition was at the "Salon des Indépendants". 1936 He married Jeanne Blanc, "a Provencal classical Beauty, with sweet eyes, with whom he knew the joy Follow Jean CARZOU Born in Aleppo, Syria, on January 1, 1907, to an Armenian family, his real name was Garnik Zouloumian, and his father was orphaned at a very young age. Jean Carzou first studied with the Marist Fathers, then at the French high school in Cairo, where, in 1924, his brilliant academic results earned him a scholarship from the Armenian community. He then moved to Paris where he entered the École spéciale d'architecture from which he graduated in 1928, studies "in spite of which he was a self-taught painter". As the 1930s approached, he was "making circles and squares" in Montparnasse. He freely attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and more particularly the studio of Édouard Goerg, of whom he remained a friend, and made a living from his caricatures of politicians published in the press (his caricature of Adolf Hitler as a German Father Christmas appeared at the 1933 Christmas party) and his drawings on fabric. He painted "far from the schools". He began to exhibit at various Parisian salons, notably the Salon des indépendants, the Tuileries, the Salon d'automne, etc. He also organised private exhibitions of his work in Paris, in the provinces and abroad. His first private exhibition was in 1939 in a gallery on the rue de Seine in Paris. France, Great Britain, the United States, Lebanon, Egypt and Japan hosted several of his exhibitions of inks, pencils, gouaches and strange pastels. He also participated in several official exhibitions organised by France outside Europe, and received the prestigious Hallmark Prize on three occasions (in 1949, 1952 and 1955), as well as the Public Prize of the Painters Witnesses of their Time in 1953. He is the father of television director Jean-Marie Carzou, born in 1938, and the grandfather of writer and journalist Louis Carzou. He is also a theatre designer. In 1977, he drew his own academician's sword before being admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Jean Bouchau
He was a bright student at the Armenian Lycee in Cairo.
As an autodidact, he enrolled himself in the Montparnasse Art Academy (La Grande Chaumière) and decided to give himself up exclusively to painting.
First, he directed his work towards geometrical abstraction, he approched Surrealism, but very quickly,
he developed his own style:figurative representation with elements of oneirism. His meeting with Gabriel Boissy, was to allow him access to Comoedia, where he illustrated fairy tales and short stories. Later, in order to earn
a living, he produced caricatures of politicians in newspapers, such as Hitler, represented as a "German Father Christmas" in "Aux écoutes" n° 814 on December 23rd 1933.
of living " as she was described by Florent Fels.
Painting, music, literature and politics were at the heart of their life. Nane Carzou wrote some books which the artist illustrated.
When war was declared&nbs Jean CARZOU
Biography
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