Sam Szafran. Obsessions of a painter
Sep 28, 2022 - Jan 16, 2023
Szafran Sam Feuillages (Detail, 1986-1989) Jean-Louis Losi / Collection particulière © Sam Szafran, ADAGP, Paris, 2022
Sam Szafran (1934-2019) occupies a singular place in the history of art in the second half of the 20th century. He has dedicated his work to a figurative and poetic-iconic approach to reality that he has developed far from the art world and its fads, in the seclusion of the studio.
A particularly difficult childhood, marked by the disasters of World War II in a family of Jewish-Polish origin, led him to prefer this solitude, focusing on his own existence and inner states to give rise to his favorite themes. Three years after the artist’s death, the Musée de l’Orangerie highlights, in the first exhibition dedicated to him organized by a French museum in two decades, the few subjects, for him, existential – studios, staircases, and foliage, – which all have his immediate environment in common.
Curators:
Dr. Julia Drost, Director of Research at the DFK German Center for Art History Paris
Sophie Eloy, Head of documentation, library, archives and research at the Musée de l’Orangerie