Georges KARS (Kraluppy 1882 - Genève 1945) Lot n° 1

Bust of a woman on a green background Oil on cardboard 45 x 37 cm Provenance : Acquired by Chana Orloff Preserved by inheritance Jewish artist of Ukrainian origin, Chana Orloff is an emblematic sculptor of the 20th century. She arrived in Paris in 1910 and the following year attended the Académie Marie Vassilief, where she made friends with many artists such as Pablo Picasso and Foujita, as well as artists who had come from the East, such as Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall and Ossip Zadkine. As early as 1910, Chana Orloff began to sculpt. Between the wars, she became the portraitist of the Parisian elite and artists. Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amadeo Modigliani and David Ossipovitch Widhopff were all portrayed by Chana Orloff. Chana Orloff has built up a collection, born of close ties with her artist friends. We can see that Chana Orloff knew the Czech painter Georges Kars in the 1920s. A work by Georges Kars adorns the wall of Chana Orloff's living room, visible on the photograph where the sculptress is surrounded by Chaïm Soutine and Olga Sacharoff at the Villa Seurat in the 1920s. In July 1942, Chana Orloff was warned of the Vel d'Hiv roundup by a senior police officer. She fled first to Grenoble and then to Lyon with her son, abandoning her studio. In Lyon she meets Georges Kars, with whom she manages to cross the Swiss border. Chana Orloff takes refuge in Geneva where she continues to create. Georges Kars takes shelter with his sister in Zurich. During the war, they kept up a correspondence. At the liberation, Chana Orloff returns to Paris with her son where she finds her studio looted by the Nazis. Georges Kars commits suicide in 1945, violently affected by the news of the fateful fate of the Jewish people.