Jean-Michel ATLAN

Atlan, of Judeo-Berber descent, left Algeria for Parisin 1930, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne. He taught philosophy atthe Lycée de Laval in 1939 and then from 1940-1941 taught at the LycéeCondorcet in Paris.

He began to paint in 1941, but was arrested in 1942,both for his resistance activities and because he was Jewish. Imprisoned, heescaped the extermination camps by feigning insanity. Interned in theSainte-Anne asylum, he was released following the Liberation. He then devotedhimself to painting and in 1944 exhibited at the Salon des Sur-indépendants inan expressionist style. He was friends with Jean Duvignaud (Clara Malraux’shusband), Alain Robbe-Grillet and René de Olbadia. A few months later, inNovember 1944, he published a collection of poems “Le Sang Profond”, which heillustrated, and in December 1944 exhibited at the Galerie l’Arc-en-Ciel.

In 1944 he began to paint without preconceived orderor formal structure, fascinated by the results of impasto colour gradations,rubbings and other marks, as in “Peinture“(1947). He developed a thought-outstyle only from 1950, when informality gave way to a more plastic organization.

In 1946 Atlan met Asger Jorn and joined the art groupCoBrA, Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam (1948-1951), and moved towardsabstraction. In 1955, he exhibited at the Galerie Charpentier. He suffered ahaemorrhage in 1959 during an exhibition in London and died on 12 February 1960shortly before presenting his paintings in New York.