
Daria Khristova nee Chernenko
Department Director
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Department Director
Provenance
Collection of Nadine Nieszawer, Paris
Literature
Jewish Artists of the school of Paris, 1905-1939, Somogy Éditions d'Art, Paris, 2015, p. 341
Léon Zack studied painting in private academies and literature at the University of Moscow. He then spent time in several studios where he met avant-garde artist Ilya Mashkov, the founding member of the group Jack of Diamonds which referred to Cézanne's Fauvism and presages of Cubism. In 1913, he published a collection of poems signed under the pseudonym "Chrysanthe" and married, in 1917, Nadia Braudo with whom he had two children: Irene, who became a sculptor, and Florent.
In 1920, Zack and his family left Russia for France via Rome, Florence, and Berlin, where he produced set designs and costumes for the Russian romantic ballets directed by Boris Romanov. Ten years later, Zack joined the neo-humanists movement inspired by the art critic Waldemar George. During this time, Léon Zack also worked for the Monte-Carlo Ballet and illustrated works by Arthur Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Baudelaire. In 1940, he left Paris and took refuge in Arcachon, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and Grenoble. He returned to Paris in 1945 where he exhibited his first abstract works at Katia Granoff's and at the Garets gallery.
From 1955 onwards, Zack dedicated his career to religious art and specialised in the production of stained-glass windows for Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres at Issy-Les-Moulineaux and for numerous churches in Paris and French provinces.