Léon Zack (1892–1980), also known as Lev Vasilyevich Zak (
Russian: Лев Васильевич Зак), was a Russian-born French figurative and later abstract painter and sculptor.[3] He has been described as a
School of Paris painter.
Biography
Léon Zack was born into a Jewish family in
Nizhny Novgorod in Russia on 12 July 1892, to a pharmacist father.[4][5] He was an illustrator, painter, designer and sculptor. He has been described a
School of Paris painter.[6] He was painting at the age of 13 and exhibiting his work by 15, being a pupil of
Jakimchenko from 1905 to 1907.[7] Whilst studying literature at the
University of Moscow, he took painting and drawing classes at private academies where he studied under
post-Impressionists such as
Mashkov.[5] After leaving Russia in 1920, he spent time in Florence, Rome and Berlin, before settling in Paris in 1923.[8][9] Whilst in Berlin, he designed costumes and sets for the
Ballets Romantiques Russes.[8]
In 1926, Zack had his first one-man show in Paris, painting figures including harlequins and gypsies. He exhibited at the
Salon d'Automne and the
Salon des Indépendants and took French citizenship in 1938.[10] He lived at
Villefranche-sur-Mer during
World War II. By 1947, he was back in Paris designing sets for the
Opéra-Comique and in the 1950s he designed stained glass windows, including for
Notre Dame des Pauvres at
Issy-les-Moulineaux. Around this time Zack's work abandoned figuration for geometrical abstraction, gradually moving toward a more expressive mode of
Tachisme. He had exhibitions of such abstract works at the Galerie Kléber in 1955 and 1957.[10] At the end of his life, he lived on the outskirts of
Paris and died in
Vanves on 30 March 1980.[6]
^
abcRonald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981,
pp.767-8
^Léon Zack, ecoledesfilles.org, accessed January 2013
^
abcCastagno, John (2010). Jewish Artists: Signatures and Monograms. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 518.
ISBN978-0-8108-7421-3.