Jean-Michel Atlan

Jean -Michel Atlan ( born January 23, 1913 in Constantine, Algeria, † February 12, 1960 in Paris) was a French philosopher, painter and illustrator.

Life

Jean -Michel Atlan came from a Jewish family. Between 1930 and 1934, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris. After the German occupation of France Atlan but lost under the Vichy regime his teaching license and lived in poverty in the Montparnasse district of Paris. During this time he devoted himself to painting for the first time and earned self-taught artistic skills.

Due to his involvement in the French Resistance and his Jewish ancestry Atlan was arrested in 1942. For two years, the artist was, after faking a mental illness, interned at the Hôpital Saint -Anne. After the liberation of France in 1944 Atlan exhibited for the first time and published his collection of poems, Le Sang profond. After brief initial success and recognition by a few avant-garde writer Atlan later lived as a peddler and soothsayers.

A poster Atlan for the exhibition of the new École de Paris at the Galerie Charpentier and designed an exhibition at the Galerie Bing in 1956 gave him the artistic breakthrough. Jean -Michel Atlan died in 1960 at the consequences of a cancer suffering; he is considered one of the most important representatives of the " Nouvelle École de Paris".

His paintings are now among others in possession of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.