Michel Sima, a pseudonym for Michał Smajewski (born 20 May 1912), was a Polish artist, known as a sculptor, photographer and ceramicist. He is best known for his photographic portraits of
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
and of almost all the artists of the School of Paris.* Erika Billeter, ''Michel Sima'' (Ateliers d'artiste), Gand, éditions Snoeck, 2008 p.201 to p.203
Biography
Michał Smajewski was born on 20 May 1912 in
Slonim
Slonim ( be, Сло́нім, russian: Сло́ним, lt, Slanimas, lv, Sloņima, pl, Słonim, yi, סלאָנים, ''Slonim'') is a city in Grodno Region, Belarus, capital of the Slonimski rajon. It is located at the junction of the Ščar ...
Poland (now Belarus). Born in a liberal middle class Jewish family, he arrived in Paris in 1929, 17 years old, and was admitted into the "Acadèmie de la Grande Chaumière". From his earliest years, he wanted to become a sculptor.
In 1933, he joins the group of the painter
Francis Gruber
Francis Gruber (1912–1948) was a French painter, founder of the ''Nouveau Réalisme'' school, and a member of the ''Force nouvelles'' group.
He was born in Nancy, the son of stained glass artist Jacques Gruber.
He first exhibited at the a ...
. He works in the Brâncuși's and Ossip Zadkine's studios, among others, and earns a living taking photos of current events for various newspapers.
He socialized in Gertrude and Leo Stein's circle and makes friends with famous people such as Jean Cocteau,
Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
,
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement.
In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...
,
Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos (; 4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) was a French poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.
Biography
Robert Desnos was born in Paris on 4 July 1900, the son of a licensed dealer in game and poultry at the '' H ...
Pierre Tal-Coat
Pierre Tal-Coat (real name Pierre Louis Jacob; 1905–1985) was a French artist considered to be one of the founders of Tachisme.
Life and work
He was born the son of a fisherman, in the village of Clohars-Carnoët, Finistère in 1905. He atten ...
and Youki Foujita. In 1936 he met
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
. He took part in many group exhibitions in Paris and on the
Riviera
''Riviera'' () is an Italian word which means "coastline", ultimately derived from Latin , through Ligurian . It came to be applied as a proper name to the coast of Liguria, in the form ''Riviera ligure'', then shortened in English. The two areas ...
.
During World War II he sought refuge in the " Zone libre" but in 1942 was arrested in Golfe Juan as a Jewish foreigner and sent to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
then to
Blechhammer
The Blechhammer ( en, sheet metal hammer) area was the location of Nazi Germany chemical plants, prisoner of war (POW) camps, and forced labor camps (german: Arbeitslager Blechhammer; also Nummernbücher). Labor camp prisoners began arriving as ...
(Judenlager), while an exhibition of his work together with Picabia's in Cannes enjoyed a great success.
Seriously ill, he returned to France in 1945, and spent months recovering in Grasse at his friend Dor de la Souchère's in Cannes.
In 1946 in Golfe Juan, he met Picasso again, and obtained for him a large studio in the Grimaldi museum in Antibes, given by Dor de la Souchère. In this studio Picasso creates "La Joie de Vivre" and "Le Triptyque".
Following Picasso's advice, Sima turns to photography. He's too weak to work as a full-time sculptor, but he continued creating small pieces and engravings, and working in ceramic.
He gave his personal opinions to Picasso about his works and provided him with documents. It resulted to the book : "Picasso à Antibes" published in 1948.
Michel Sima then specialized in portraits. He creates a very personal style, expressing his deep-rooted fondness for his model. And in the following years, he'll realizes photos of nearly all the artists, members of the School of Paris.
His first book was published in 1959 by editor Fernand Nathan: ''21 Visages d'artistes'' (21 Faces of Artists). Seeing the poor quality of the copies, Sima's disappointment was so great that he decides to stop publishing photos.
In 1967, his old friend, the painter René Besset invited him to the
Ardèche
Ardèche (; oc, Ardecha; frp, Ardecha) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.La Ruche" in Paris. From this tim
e to his death in 1987, he kept testing new materials and searching for new forms in his sculptures.
Books by Michel Sima
*(fr) ''Picasso à Antibes'', photographies de Michel Sima, commentées par Paul Eluard, introduction par Jaime Sabartès, Paris, René Drouin, 1948.
*(fr) ''21 visages d’artistes'', photographies de Michel Sima, préface de Jean Cocteau, Paris, Fernand Nathan, 1959.
*''Faces of modern art'', photography by Michel Sima, preface by Jean Cocteau, translated by Gloria Levy, Tudor Publishing Co., New York, 1959
Antibes
Antibes (, also , ; oc, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal, Antíbol) is a coastal city in the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department of southeastern France, on the French Riviera, Côte d'Azur between Cannes and Nice.
The town of ...
Málaga
Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...
Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti The Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti is a leading French public utility institution created by a French Ministry of Culture decree of December 2003. Its purpose is the promotion, dissemination, preservation and protection of the works of Al ...
*
* Jean-Louis Andral, Michel Sima, Anne de Staël, ''L'atelier des combles'', co-édition Musée Picasso, Antibes, éditions Hazan, Paris, 2008
*Jean-Louis Andral,
Pierre Daix
Pierre Georges Daix (24 May 1922, Ivry-sur-Seine – 2 November 2014, Paris) was a French journalist, writer and art historian. He was a friend and biographer of Pablo Picasso.
As a young man, Daix was an ardent Stalinist. He joined the French Co ...
, ''Picasso : la Joie de Vivre'' (1946-1949), Skira, 2007
* Maurice Fréchuret,
Françoise Gilot
Marie Françoise Gilot (born 26 November 1921) is a French painter, best known for her relationship with Pablo Picasso, with whom she had two children. Gilot was already launched as an accomplished artist, notably in watercolours and ceramics, b ...
, Michel Sima, ''1946, Picasso et la Méditerranée retrouvée'', Nice, Grégoire Garedette éditions, 1996
* Mark Haworth-Booth, « The artist as subject. The photographs of Michel Sima », in Paul Josefowitz (CM), Apollo (magazine), No 428, October 1997, London, monthly
Filmography
* Christian Tran, ''Picasso et Sima, le modeleur d'amitié'', production Artis, Lyon TV, 2009, 58 mn, (English subtitles)Catalogue of the BPI