419 - Georges PAPAZOFF (1894–1972)

Georges PAPAZOFF (1894–1972) The Couple, a Man and a Woman, 1930 Oil on canvas Signed lower right and dated on the reverse 118 x 89 cm Framed The resale royalty is the responsibility of the buyer. PROVENANCE: Acquired from François Tournié in the 1960s or 1970s—a family friend—and subsequently passed down to the current owner. The condition report is available upon request at the following email address: contact@neo-encheres.com Description: Born in Yambol, Bulgaria, in 1894, Georges Papazoff studied in Prague and then in Munich, where he attended Hans Hofmann’s school, before exhibiting in Berlin in 1923. He settled in Paris in 1924, having been introduced to the art scene there by his compatriot Jules Pascin. Although he never formally joined André Breton’s group, he exhibited alongside the Surrealists; Édouard Jaguer saw him as one of the precursors of “abstract surrealism” on par with Joan Miró, Max Ernst, and André Masson, and critics have coined the phrase “surrealist before surrealism.” Paul Klee was among his major influences, and André Derain among his friends. His painting is rooted in the cosmopolitan Paris of the interwar period, where many artists from Eastern Europe were working at the time: Marc Chagall, Chaïm Soutine, Mikhail Larionov, and Natalia Goncharova; Serge Charchoune; as well as Konstantin Korovin, Alexandre Iacovleff, and Zinaida Serebriakova—figures of the Russian émigré community. Exhibited at Jeanne Bucher’s gallery in 1928 and then at the Galerie de la Renaissance in 1930, with the support of Henri-Pierre Roché and Katherine Dreier, Papazoff’s work is now represented in the collections of the Yale University Art Gallery, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Petit Palais in Geneva, the National Gallery in Sofia, and, since 2024, the Centre Pompidou. He died in Vence in 1972. This large canvas from 1930, depicting a couple, comes from the Françoise Tournié Gallery.