Georges Malkine

GEORGES ALEXANDRE MALKINE, 1898-1970

Georges Malkine was the only painter to sign the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924; the other signatories were, for the most part, writers. His 1926 painting, Nuit D'amour, was the precursor of the lyrical abstract school of painting.

"He has pushed individualism to the point of impertinence! But what art in his expression of the ineffable whenever he took the pains to do so!" Andre Breton

"Georges Malkine has left his delicate mark on the window of time, made as with a diamond, without altering its transparence, without blurring the view, leaving the purest trace that can only be discerned from a certain angle and in a certain light." Patrick Waldberg, Georges Malkine, 1970

Little-known facts, but most facts about Georges Malkine are little known, largely because he went to some pains that this should be so. He abhorred the idea of the limelight shining into his private life, and outside of his film and theatre career, his work was known only to those who bought and collected his work from the few shows he had, or who witnessed the historic carryings-on of the time. He avoided groups like the plague, as well as anthologies and other methods of categorizing (and, to his mind, demeaning) artists; his example championed the concept of individualism.

"[Malkine] is perhaps the only artist," said French critic and author Patrick Waldberg in his 1970 book on him "about whom it can be said that through his life and his work, reality and dreams may cease to be viewed contrarily." Indeed, Malkine lived Surrealism, allowing his fate to be tossed where the wind would blow it, eschewing all attachments to fame, money, career, and other like things that seek to confine, define, and, in the end, confuse the real issues. He believed a man's wealth was contained in the inner landscapes, and didn't like to talk about himself; his paintings were the glimpses he provided for those who were interested.

Georges Malkine had a musical soul, and especially loved the piano; his highest love was for poetry.

Malkine's work spans the years from the early 1920s right up until the time of his death in 1970. He painted approximately 500 pieces in his lifetime, and did some writing and illustrating. His solo shows numbered only 7 (3 more were posthumous), but he contributed to 36 collective shows (18 posthumously). He won the Copley Prize in 1967. His records and reports from other sources show his periods of greatest activity as being the twenties, the early thirties, and the sixties. The body of his work is remarkable in that it ended with a period of productivity that was just as strong and notable as the early periods. He embarked at this time on his "Demeures," a series of metaphorical portraits of the great artists from many disciplines, these portraits taking the form of buildings or "dwellings" of the artists, each reflecting his perception of their character or their work.

Malkine was not devoted uniquely to the art of painting; between the years 1933 - 1939, he acted in 20 films, working with, among others, Jean Gabin, Billy Wilder, and Michele Morgan. In 1950 he wrote a farcical novel called A Bord du Violon de Mer, which is now taught in college texts as a brilliant example of humor and puns in French writing. In the exercises after the excerpt, when asking the students to write something about what they have just read, one text suggests that when doing so, they should not feel constrained by the laws of reason.

Recent shows of Malkine's work: A retrospective of Malkine’s early and late paintings opened at Les Yeux Fertiles, a Parisian art gallery in the rue de Seine in June of 2004. 2 major shows in 1999 contained paintings and drawings by Malkine, from both his late and early periods. The Surrealism: Two Private Eyes exhibit at the Solomon Guggenheim in New York City, taken from the immense Surrealist art collections of Daniel Filipacchi and Nesuhi Ertegun, included a beautiful 4-painting array and one drawing. The other show was entitled Georges Malkine: Le Vagabond du Surrééalism, and was a 4-month, one-man show at the Pavillion des Arts in Paris, the showcase gallery of the Muséée de Paris. It was the most complete Malkine retrospective to date. Five paintings were shown in Paris in 1995 in a collector's show at the Muséée D'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, titled Passions Privéés. His paintings appear at numerous European art auctions, and most of them are in collections throughout the world.

A selection of paintings may be seen at http://www.malkine.com/family/georges/paintings.cfm.