Leopold Survage (1879-1968) - Personnage dans la ville

Technique: Gouache
Signature: Hand signed
Very beautiful gouache stencil on paper created by Léopold SURVAGE 1953
signed lower right
it measures 18cm x 25cm plus frame 27cm x 33cm
. Born in 1879 in Moscow. Fascinated at a very young age by drawing and painting, in 1901 he entered the Moscow School of Fine Arts with Constantin Korovin and Leonid Pasternak, and visited Shchukin's private collection: Manet, Gauguin, the Impressionists, Matisse, etc. There he met Michel Larionov, David Bourliuk, Soudeïkin, and Sapounov. In 1903 he painted his first work known to date: Moscow and participated in various exhibitions including the so-called “Stephanos” in 1907-1908 at the house of the Stroganov school and the “Knave of Diamonds” in 1910-1911. In the meantime his father was ruined, he liquidated his affairs and with the little money he had left he left for Paris and on July 12, 1908 he arrived in Paris with Hélène Moniuschko whom he married on January 20, 1908 in Sergiev Possad, they separated in 1911 and divorced in 1918.
From Moscow he knew the famous harpsichordist Wanda Landowska who introduced him as a piano tuner to the Pleyel house, he found Archipenko whom he saw in Moscow and took courses at the Académie Matisse and the Académie Colarossi. First exhibitions from 1911 and, in 1914, the principles of "colorful rhythm" by which an analogy between colored visual form and music is found, were established.
Introduced by Guillaume Apollinaire into the circle of Baroness Hélène d'Oettingen, with whom he maintained a romantic relationship until the end of the First World War, and of Serge Férat in 1911, he met André Salmon, Picasso, Gino Severini, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, etc. His autograph signature appears on one of the sheets signed by the guests of the memorable banquet given on December 31, 1916 in honor of Apollinaire at the Ancien Palais d'Orléans on Avenue du Maine.
At the Salon des indépendants of 1914 he showed colorful rhythms, which he wanted to achieve in cinema, anticipating the research on abstract cinema which would be carried out by Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter5. Apollinaire exalts “Le Rhythme Colorful”, in the Soirées de Paris in 1914. In 1915 Survage left for Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat with Baroness d'Oettingen and remained on the Côte d'Azur until the end of the war. There he met his future wife, Germaine Meyer. In a letter to Léopold Zborowski dated December 31, 1918, Modigliani wrote: “I'm making a bomb with Survage at the Coq d'Or. . . The champagne is flowing freely. ” Apollinaire organized Survage's first exhibition at the Bongard gallery in 1917, bringing together thirty-two of his paintings. In 1920 Survage filed the statutes of the “Section d’Or” of which he was founder with Albert Gleizes and Archipenko, Braque. Serge Férat, Fernand Léger, Louis Marcoussis, are part of the steering committee. This association is responsible for organizing exhibitions in France and abroad. In 1921, he participated in the exhibition “The Masters of Cubism” at the Galerie de L’Effort moderne. Albert Gleizes reproduces a work in his book On Cubism and the Means of Understanding it. He married the pianist Germaine Meyer on July 7, 1921. In 1922 he exhibited at Léonce Rosenberg, participated in the first exhibition of the Section d'Or in Italy in Rome, then a group exhibition at the Weill gallery with Henri Hayden, Auguste Herbin , Irène Lagut, Jean Metzinger and Severini.
From 1922, Survage worked for the Ballets Russes of Serge de Diaghilev and created the sets and costumes for Igor Stravinsky's opera buffa, Mavra on a libretto by Boris Kochno based on a tale by Pushkin, he also produced a project decor for The School of Women at the request of Louis Jouvet, without follow-up. In 1927 an article by Samuel Putnam on Survage in the Chicago Evening Post preceded a special exhibition in Chicago at the Chester Johnson Galleries. It was then an international career that he pursued by multiplying personal and collective exhibitions in France and abroad. He made fabric designs for the house of Chanel and religious compositions such as the crucifixion for the cathedral of Turku in Finland in 1930. In 1937, he created a series of monumental panels for the railway palace at the Arts Exhibition and Techniques of Paris: Postal links and telecommunications, Optics-Watchmaking, Mechanical precision. These paintings, measuring 15. 5 meters by 4 meters in height, will receive the gold medal.
He devoted himself to monumental painting in the years 1950-1960: fresco on the theme of Peace at the Palais des Congrès in Liège which led him to stay eighteen months in Belgium in 1958, drew cartoons The Rooster and the Horse for the Manufacture des Gobelins and illustrates literary works.
On March 12, 1963, he was named an officer of the Legion of Honor.
His grave is in the Bois-Tardieu cemetery in Clamart.