SAM SZAFRAN (1934-2019)

TRIBUTE TO DÜRER
Signed l.r.
Charcoal with stumping
55 x 43.5 cm
 
PROVENANCE
The Artist's Estate
 
 
 
 
 
The present work is something of a synthesis of Dürer’s portraits of men, particularly his Portrait of a Man (Museo del Prado, Madrid, P02180) and the Portrait of Bernhart von Reesen (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no.1871).
 
 
 
Sam Szafran was one of the most distinctive artistic voices of postwar France, occupying a position outside the aesthetic movements that came and went and instead developing an idiosyncratic but immediately recognisable style all of his own. Although his practice was highly individual, he was nevertheless a well-known figure in the French artistic establishment: he spent time at the start of his career in the Montparnasse cafés, where countercultural icons such as Chet Baker, Jean Arp and Yves Klein became his friends, and it was here that he found his first dealer, Jacques Kerchache. A chance meeting with Alberto Giacometti set him on a lifelong path pursuing figurative work and, particularly, a focus on a single motif which he would explore in series or cycle of works. These series included such subjects as cabbages, greenhouses, workshops and the celebrated Escalier series, depictions of the staircase at the building the artist kept a studio in, 54 Rue de Seine. 
 
 
Szafran's first public showing was at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1957, but it was not until 1965 that he had his first solo exhibition, at Kerchache's gallery. He exhibited continually throughout his life, and over the course of his career was decorated with various awards and orders, a testament to his significant reputation. Retrospectives of Szafran's art have been held at the Fondation Gianadda (on three occasions), the Fondation Maeght, the Musée de la Vie Romantique, the Max Ernst Museum and the Musée de l'Orangerie.