16 December 2020 - 13 February 2021 : He takes part in the exhibition "Septet Carte Blanche à Pierre Buraglio et Rachel Stella" , Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery, Paris. 
TWO PAINTINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY ARE EXHIBITED
18 December 2019 - 1 February 2020 : He takes part in the exhibition "Guerre(s)" , Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery, Paris.
TWELVE DRAWINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY ARE EXHIBITED
4 October - 30 November 2019 : He takes part in the exhibition "Trésors de banlieues" , Halle des Grésillons, Gennevilliers.
"Trésors de banlieues" is an exhibition that gathers 250 artworks from municipal museums of 51 French cities..
Presentation of this exhibition on the Youtube channel of the city of Gennevilliers.
Presentation of this exhibition on the Youtube channel of the city of Gennevilliers.
EXCERPTS FROM THE VIDEO OF ISABELLE ROLLIN-ROYER'S CONFERENCE: "A COMBATING REALISM"
Click on the image below to watch the video (25 min).
PAINTINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY EXHIBITED IN "TRÉSORS DE BANLIEUES"
|
|
|
|
|
DRAWINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY EXHIBITED IN "TRÉSORS DE BANLIEUES"
|
|
24 September - 16 December 2019 : "Ils ont vu l'Algérie" , musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris.
As part of the current exhibition for the 20 years of acquisition by the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, artworks of Boris Taslitzky are exhibited. These artworks are part of a series of drawings and paintings made by Boris Taslitzky and Mireille Miaihle during a report in Algeria in 1952.
They are exhibited until 16 December 2019 in the graphic arts office on the first floor, at the end of the permanent collections, which they will then join.
|
|
|
17 April 2019 : "1952, Miailhe et Taslitzky, two communist painters in French Algeria" , Centre Pompidou, Forum, level -1, Paris.
A conference by Isabelle Rollin-Royer, Doctor of Art History, during the symposium, Socialist realism, from the land of Soviets to that of Aragon, as part of the exhibition "RED, Art and utopia in the land of Soviets", organized by the RMN-GP and the Centre Pompidou at the Grand Palais, Paris, from March 20 to July 1, 2019.
Full text of Isabelle Rollin-Royer's conference
|
|
|
20 March - 1 July 2019 : He takes part in the exhibition "RED, Art and utopia in the land of Soviets" in Grand Palais, Paris.
|
|
|
|
|
On this occasion a painting by Boris Taslitzky is exposed : ESCALATOR IN THE PARIS SUBWAY TONIGHT, March-April 1935, oil on canvas, 51 x 38,1 in
5 April - 28 July 2019 : He takes part in the exhibition "Picasso and war" in ARMY MUSEUM, Paris.
|
|
|
|
|
Text dedicated to Boris Taslitzky, on page 342 of the exhibition catalogue "Picasso and war" .
According to the painter Boris Taslitzky, his whole life was marked by war1. After the 1905 revolution, his parents, Russian Jews who had emigrated, settled in France. His father died fighting in the French army during the First World War. Taslitzky studied at the École nationale des beaux-arts de Paris, where he was a student of the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. In 1935, he joined the Communist Party and illustrated Ce soir, the daily newspaper created by the PCF. He places his art at the service of political causes, in particular with his work Les Grèves de 1936, in response to current events.
Mobilized in 1939, Taslitzky was taken prisoner in 1940. After escaping, he joined Le Lot and entered the Resistance: he made leaflets and clandestine newspapers. Arrested in 1941 as a communist, he was imprisoned in the internment camp of Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe (Tarn), where he painted a series of frescoes on barracks, which earned him the title of "Maitre de Saint-Sulpice" by Aragon. His mother was arrested in 1942 and deported to the Auschwitz camp, where she died. Transferred to the Buchenwald camp in 1944, Taslitzky managed to recover drawing material2 and produced nearly two hundred sketches and drawings as well as five watercolours which are all testimonies of the camp's activity: the waiting, the comrades, the chores... then his release. Taslitzky sent this corpus to Aragon, which published it in 1946 under the title "Cent onze dessins faits à Buchenwald".
After the war, as a great figure of socialist realism, he rubbed shoulders with Picasso in the PCF and the Peace Congresses. Their correspondence ceased after a letter dated November 14, 19563, in which Taslitzky invited Picasso not to support Hélène Parmelin's text criticizing the Soviet intervention in Hungary. Picasso's name will finally appear alongside ten other signatories in this open letter dated November 20 (CAT. 252).
Taslitzky participates in the Art et Résistance exhibition and the Autumn Fairs. The 1951 one was marked by the scandal of the exhibition of his work Riposte in Port-de-Bouc4, an evocation of the dockworkers' strike against the Indochina war and its repression by the police forces: the police commissioner had the painting removed on the grounds that it "offends national sentiment". Six other works are also concerned, including the portrait d'Henri Martin in a convict made under a pseudonym.
In 1952, Taslitzky was invited by the French Communist Party to Algeria with the painter Mireille Miailhe to visit the districts of Oran and Constantine. His drawings and dated notebooks allow us to follow his journey and constitute an exceptional testimony to the living conditions of the middle and working classes5, their culture and their lifestyles. The drawings and paintings produced on this occasion are presented at the Algeria 52 exhibition and grouped together in publications6.
Witness and actor of the 20th century, Boris Taslitzky has mixed his artistic and political commitments all his life.
Clotilde Forest
1 Isabelle Rollin-Royer, [online]
2 Richard 1995, p. 224.
3 AMNPP, 515 AP/C/167/4/3(1).
4 Boris Taslitzky, Riposte à Port-de-Bouc, 1951, oil on canvas, 82.7 × 122.0 in, Londres, Tate Gallery, inv. T07431.
5 Gervereau-Rioux-Stora 1992, p. 211.
6 Taslitzky-Miailhe-Dubois, 1953
According to the painter Boris Taslitzky, his whole life was marked by war1. After the 1905 revolution, his parents, Russian Jews who had emigrated, settled in France. His father died fighting in the French army during the First World War. Taslitzky studied at the École nationale des beaux-arts de Paris, where he was a student of the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. In 1935, he joined the Communist Party and illustrated Ce soir, the daily newspaper created by the PCF. He places his art at the service of political causes, in particular with his work Les Grèves de 1936, in response to current events.
Mobilized in 1939, Taslitzky was taken prisoner in 1940. After escaping, he joined Le Lot and entered the Resistance: he made leaflets and clandestine newspapers. Arrested in 1941 as a communist, he was imprisoned in the internment camp of Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe (Tarn), where he painted a series of frescoes on barracks, which earned him the title of "Maitre de Saint-Sulpice" by Aragon. His mother was arrested in 1942 and deported to the Auschwitz camp, where she died. Transferred to the Buchenwald camp in 1944, Taslitzky managed to recover drawing material2 and produced nearly two hundred sketches and drawings as well as five watercolours which are all testimonies of the camp's activity: the waiting, the comrades, the chores... then his release. Taslitzky sent this corpus to Aragon, which published it in 1946 under the title "Cent onze dessins faits à Buchenwald".
After the war, as a great figure of socialist realism, he rubbed shoulders with Picasso in the PCF and the Peace Congresses. Their correspondence ceased after a letter dated November 14, 19563, in which Taslitzky invited Picasso not to support Hélène Parmelin's text criticizing the Soviet intervention in Hungary. Picasso's name will finally appear alongside ten other signatories in this open letter dated November 20 (CAT. 252).
Taslitzky participates in the Art et Résistance exhibition and the Autumn Fairs. The 1951 one was marked by the scandal of the exhibition of his work Riposte in Port-de-Bouc4, an evocation of the dockworkers' strike against the Indochina war and its repression by the police forces: the police commissioner had the painting removed on the grounds that it "offends national sentiment". Six other works are also concerned, including the portrait d'Henri Martin in a convict made under a pseudonym.
In 1952, Taslitzky was invited by the French Communist Party to Algeria with the painter Mireille Miailhe to visit the districts of Oran and Constantine. His drawings and dated notebooks allow us to follow his journey and constitute an exceptional testimony to the living conditions of the middle and working classes5, their culture and their lifestyles. The drawings and paintings produced on this occasion are presented at the Algeria 52 exhibition and grouped together in publications6.
Witness and actor of the 20th century, Boris Taslitzky has mixed his artistic and political commitments all his life.
Clotilde Forest
1 Isabelle Rollin-Royer, [online]
2 Richard 1995, p. 224.
3 AMNPP, 515 AP/C/167/4/3(1).
4 Boris Taslitzky, Riposte à Port-de-Bouc, 1951, oil on canvas, 82.7 × 122.0 in, Londres, Tate Gallery, inv. T07431.
5 Gervereau-Rioux-Stora 1992, p. 211.
6 Taslitzky-Miailhe-Dubois, 1953
26 September 2017 : At the mahJ, Museum of Judaic Art and History, 71 rue du Temple 75003 Paris, opening of the Boris Taslizky exhibition "If I go to hell, I will sketch there!" Évelyne Taslitzky Donation.
Two paintings and ten drawings were exhibited in "la chambre du Duc" until 28 January 2018.
PAINTINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY, MUSEUM OF JUDAIC ART AND HISTORY, ÉVELYNE TASLITZKY DONATION
|
|
DRAWINGS OF BORIS TASLITZKY, MUSEUM OF JUDAIC ART AND HISTORY, ÉVELYNE TASLITZKY DONATION
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
16 July 2017 : The French President, Emmanuel MACRON, mentioned the name of Boris TASLITZKY in his speech at the ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv Holocaust roundup in Paris.
« …With the widespread renewal of religious warfare and ethnic conflicts in our time, intolerance and communitarianism, everything must be done so that humanity does not descend to the depths of debasement.
What happened to the deportees should serve as a valuable example. Those deportees, who, in the camps, were plunged into misery and in the shadow of death, and who rose above the survival instinct in which they were condemned to remain. They helped, fed, clothed their companions in misfortune. They even sometimes painted and drew like Léon DELABRE or Boris TASLITZKY to keep a diary, like Etty HILLESUM, to compose quartets or operas, like Germaine TILLION and using their memories to give conferences about Proust, Michel-Ange and natural sciences.
It was to realize that what was denied them was not simply life, little by little, slowly, it was their humanity, it was our humanity. And that day after day, no matter how exhausted, exhausted, defending our civilization, our history, our painters, a language or a philosophy, it was refusing to cede the slightest inch of this civilization, because what was at stake, it was not to survive, it was to live fully, totally, it was to defend there, in each of these places, that humanity of which each and each of these men were at that time the true depositaries. And we will never forget it … »
Extract of the speech is available online with the video on the CRIF website.
What happened to the deportees should serve as a valuable example. Those deportees, who, in the camps, were plunged into misery and in the shadow of death, and who rose above the survival instinct in which they were condemned to remain. They helped, fed, clothed their companions in misfortune. They even sometimes painted and drew like Léon DELABRE or Boris TASLITZKY to keep a diary, like Etty HILLESUM, to compose quartets or operas, like Germaine TILLION and using their memories to give conferences about Proust, Michel-Ange and natural sciences.
It was to realize that what was denied them was not simply life, little by little, slowly, it was their humanity, it was our humanity. And that day after day, no matter how exhausted, exhausted, defending our civilization, our history, our painters, a language or a philosophy, it was refusing to cede the slightest inch of this civilization, because what was at stake, it was not to survive, it was to live fully, totally, it was to defend there, in each of these places, that humanity of which each and each of these men were at that time the true depositaries. And we will never forget it … »
Extract of the speech is available online with the video on the CRIF website.
29 April 2017 : Inauguration of the plaque "Promenade Boris Taslitzky" in Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe
As announced by the Dépêche du Midi on Saturday 29 April 2017, Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe celebrated the memory of the deportees through the inauguration of the plaque "Promenade Boris Taslitzky".
"Lessons of History help us learn and have a better understanding of the present, to prepare for the future, without forgetting those who have died. It is our duty not to forget the causes that lead to war and the resulting consequences. It is our duty to remember what values have been transmitted to us by those who have gone before us. This is why Dominique Rondi-Sarrat, mayor of the city, proposed to the city council last December, to rename the square called Respect and the Good Entente, in "Promenade Boris Taslitzky".
This memorial plaque brings honor to the French painter Boris Taslitzky (1911-2005) of Russian origin, who entered the memory of the city, beyond the history of the Resistance in which he demonstrated his exemplary commitment. He was called up as a soldier and then was taken prisoner and managed to escape. He was arrested in November 1941, sentenced to two years, transferred to the prisons of Riom and Mauzac, and then to the center of Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe where, with the complicity of the other prisoners, he painted a set of frescoes. They earned him the name of « Master of Saint Sulpice », thanks to an article published in the journal "Regards" by Aragon. On July 31, 1944, he was deported to the camp of Buchenwald where he managed to produce some 200 drawings to witness life in the camp. Saturday, April 29, at 10 am, on the esplanade Georges Spénale, residents and visitors were cordially invited to come in to join this ceremony, in the presence of numerous personalities including : the Mayor Jean-Philippe Lantès, as a representative of associations : The Resistance and the Deportation, Mrs. Linda Gourjade deputy of the Tarn and Evelyne Taslitzky daughter of the artist who gave speeches. The musics of the Marseillaise and the Song of the Partisans were played and a minute's silence in memory of the dead deported was observed.
The inauguration continued in the room « Georges Spénale » with the presentation of an exhibition of reproductions of some works of Boris Taslitzky showing some of his sketches made at the camp of Buchenwald as well as some paintings. The exhibition of the documentary film "Fresques perdues, Mémoire vivante" ("Lost Frescoes, Living Memory") created in 2016 by the students of the Saint-Sulpician Secondary school Pierre-Suc and awarded by the National Competition of Resistance and Deportation, accompanied this exhibition.
"Lessons of History help us learn and have a better understanding of the present, to prepare for the future, without forgetting those who have died. It is our duty not to forget the causes that lead to war and the resulting consequences. It is our duty to remember what values have been transmitted to us by those who have gone before us. This is why Dominique Rondi-Sarrat, mayor of the city, proposed to the city council last December, to rename the square called Respect and the Good Entente, in "Promenade Boris Taslitzky".
This memorial plaque brings honor to the French painter Boris Taslitzky (1911-2005) of Russian origin, who entered the memory of the city, beyond the history of the Resistance in which he demonstrated his exemplary commitment. He was called up as a soldier and then was taken prisoner and managed to escape. He was arrested in November 1941, sentenced to two years, transferred to the prisons of Riom and Mauzac, and then to the center of Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe where, with the complicity of the other prisoners, he painted a set of frescoes. They earned him the name of « Master of Saint Sulpice », thanks to an article published in the journal "Regards" by Aragon. On July 31, 1944, he was deported to the camp of Buchenwald where he managed to produce some 200 drawings to witness life in the camp. Saturday, April 29, at 10 am, on the esplanade Georges Spénale, residents and visitors were cordially invited to come in to join this ceremony, in the presence of numerous personalities including : the Mayor Jean-Philippe Lantès, as a representative of associations : The Resistance and the Deportation, Mrs. Linda Gourjade deputy of the Tarn and Evelyne Taslitzky daughter of the artist who gave speeches. The musics of the Marseillaise and the Song of the Partisans were played and a minute's silence in memory of the dead deported was observed.
The inauguration continued in the room « Georges Spénale » with the presentation of an exhibition of reproductions of some works of Boris Taslitzky showing some of his sketches made at the camp of Buchenwald as well as some paintings. The exhibition of the documentary film "Fresques perdues, Mémoire vivante" ("Lost Frescoes, Living Memory") created in 2016 by the students of the Saint-Sulpician Secondary school Pierre-Suc and awarded by the National Competition of Resistance and Deportation, accompanied this exhibition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
March 2016 : Creation of a Boris Taslitzky Endowment Fund
A Boris Taslitzky Endowment Fund was created in March 2016. It is composed of ten members, most of whom come from the art world and have known Boris Taslitzky and his work: artists, curators, professors, writer-filmmakers, etc. It meets at least once a year and its purpose is to ensure the conservation, diffusion and promotion of his work among specialists and the general public. Contact via this website.