Jean Bazaine (1904-2001)

French Painter

JEAN RENE BAZAINE was born in Paris in 1904 and grew up at Forges (lle-de-France). He was a French abstract painter and writer. He studied under the French sculptor Paul Maximilien Landowski (b 1875) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the same time he studied for a degree in literature at the Sorbonne. In 1924 he made two trips to Italy and there began to paint. He first exhibited in 1930 at a group show at the Galerie Jeanne Castel in Paris where the other artists included Jean Fautrier, Jean Pougny and Marcel Gromaire. Two years later he had his first one-man show at the Galerie Van Leer in Paris where he met Bonnard, who advised and encouraged him. Also in 1932 he began his work on the review Esprit and he later contributed art criticism to Temps Présent and Poésie 43 . He was awarded the Blumenthal Prize in 1938. Bazaine’s works are found in the permanent collection of The National Museum of Modern Art, Paris. The piece ‘Pierres, Arbres et Plaine’ sold at Sotheby’s Paris in 2008 for over $160,000. Bazaine died in Clamart in 2001.