Orchestrated with a masterful hand by Jean Clair in 1999, the retrospective of Sam Szafran's work organized by the Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Martigny, Switzerland, made it possible to make a first assessment of the career of this artist born in Paris in 1934. The exhibition featured works created between 1958 and 2012, mainly from the collection of the artist's wife and the Centre Pompidou.
Although he was born in the heart of Paris, it was in the Loiret and Aveyron that this eldest son of Polish Jewish immigrant parents found refuge during the Second World War. After a brief internment in Drancy, Sam Szafran, whose real name was Samuel Berger, was sent to Switzerland in 1944, then to Melbourne, Australia, where he stayed with his mother and sister until 1951.
When he returned to France, in the very tense social and political context of the post-war period, the artist managed to survive by teaching a few drawing classes in the schools of the City of Paris.
Sam Szafran (né en 1934)
Feuillages - circa 1980
Result : 901 €
Self-taught, Sam Szafran studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, an art school founded by the Swiss painter Martha Stettler (1870-1945) in 1904. In his compositions, the artist proposes ambitious plastic solutions. During exhibitions and openings, he met Nicolas de Staël, Yves Klein, Jean Dubuffet and Jean Tinguely. He tried his hand at collages and abstract painting before returning to figuration in the early 1960s.
Presented by the Claude Bernard Gallery in 1964, his work is the subject of an exhibition organized by the merchant and first art collector Jacques Kerchache (1942-2001).
Sam Szafran (né en 1934)
Atelier au feuillage avec personnage, 1978
Result : 624000 €
The artist died on September 14, 2019 at the age of 84. He leaves behind a work in which, from time to time, the spread of vegetation allowed ghostly human presence to appear, usually wrapped in colourful clothing.
Sold for more than 624,000 euros at the "5 to 118" sale on September 18, 2019, the Foliage Workshop with character corresponds to the highest auction of the year for the PIASA house.
Reflecting the painter's true passion for the world of plants, the etching entitled Feuillage was sold in 2017 for 1,820 euros.
Sam Szafran (né en 1934)
Feuillage - 1970
Result : 1820 €
