Georges Alexandre Malkine (October 10, 1898 – March 22, 1970) was the only painter to sign the Surrealist Manifesto

Surrealist Manifesto

Two Surrealist Manifestos were issued by the Surrealist movement, in 1924 and 1929. The first was written by André Breton, the second was supervised by him. Breton drafted a third Surrealist manifesto which was never issued.-First manifesto:...

 of 1924; the other signatories were, for the most part, writers. His 1926 painting Nuit D'amour was the precursor of the lyrical abstract

Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...

 school of painting.

• "He has pushed individualism to the point of impertinence! But what art in his expression of the ineffable whenever he took the pains to do so!" — André Breton
  André Breton
  André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
  
  
• "Georges Malkine has left his delicate mark on the window of time, made as with a diamond, without altering its transparence, without blurring the view, leaving the purest trace that can only be discerned from a certain angle and in a certain light." — Patrick Waldberg (1970)

Life

Georges Malkine chose not to expose his private life, and, apart from his film and theatre career, his work was known only to those who bought and collected his work from the few shows he had, or who witnessed the historic carryings-on of the time. He avoided groups like the plague, as well as anthologies and other methods of categorizing (and, to his mind, demeaning) artists; his example championed the concept of individualism.

A recent false rumor to the effect that Malkine was homosexual has been traced to a Man Ray

Man Ray

Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...

 photograph of him kissing his wife, who wore her hair short, like a man's. This 1930 photo included Malkine, his wife Yvette, André de la Rivière, Robert Desnos

Robert Desnos

Robert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.- Biography :...

, and the sculptor Lasserre. This idea and any elaboration upon it is pure fabrication.

"[Malkine] is perhaps the only artist", said French art historian and author Patrick Waldberg in his 1970 book on him, "about whom it can be said that through his life and his work, reality and dreams may cease to be viewed contrarily." Indeed, Malkine lived Surrealism, allowing his fate to be tossed where the wind would blow it, eschewing all attachments to fame, money, career, and other like things that seek to confine, define, and, in the end, confuse the real issues. He believed a man's wealth was contained in the inner landscapes, and didn't like to talk about himself; his paintings were the glimpses he provided for those who were interested.

Georges Malkine had a musical soul, and especially loved the piano; his highest love was for poetry.

Work

Malkine's work spans the years from the early 1920s right up until the time of his death in 1970. He painted approximately 500 pieces in his lifetime, and did some writing and illustrating. His solo shows numbered only seven (four more were posthumous), but he contributed to 37 collective shows (19 posthumously). He won the William and Norma Copley Foundation Award in 1966. His records and reports from other sources show his periods of greatest activity as being the twenties, the early thirties, and the sixties. The body of his work is remarkable in that it ended with a period of productivity that was just as strong and notable as the early periods. He embarked at this time on his "Demeures", a series of metaphorical portraits of the great artists from many disciplines, these portraits taking the form of buildings or "dwellings" of the artists, each reflecting his perception of their character or their work.

Malkine was not devoted uniquely to the art of painting; between the years 1933-1939, he acted in 20 films, working with, among others, Jean Gabin

Jean Gabin

-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...

, Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

, and Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan is a French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades.- Career :Morgan was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris....

. In 1950 he wrote a farcical novel called A Bord du Violon de Mer, which is now taught in college texts as a brilliant example of humor and puns in French writing. In the exercises after the excerpt, when asking the students to write something about what they have just read, one text suggests that when doing so, they should not feel constrained by the laws of reason.

Recent shows

A retrospective of Malkine's early and late paintings opened at the Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, a Paris art gallery on the rue de Seine in June 2004. Two major shows in 1999 contained paintings and drawings by Malkine, from both his late and early periods. The Surrealism: Two Private Eyes exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

 in New York City, taken from the immense Surrealist art collections of Daniel Filipacchi

Daniel Filipacchi

Daniel Filipacchi is the Chairman Emeritus of Hachette Filipacchi Médias.His life and career have been noted for his passionate involvement in art collecting, photography, and jazz...

 and Nesuhi Ertegün

Nesuhi Ertegun

Nesuhi Ertegun was a Turkish record producer and executive of Atlantic Records and WEA International.-Background:Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Nesuhi and his family, including younger brother Ahmet, moved to Washington, D.C...

, included a beautiful four-painting array and one drawing. The other show was entitled Georges Malkine: Le Vagabond du Surréalisme, and was a four-month, one-man show at the Pavilion des Arts in Paris, the showcase gallery of the Musée de Paris. It was the most complete Malkine retrospective to date. Five paintings were shown in Paris in 1995 in a collector's show at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, titled Passions Privés. His paintings appear at numerous European art auctions, and most of them are in collections throughout the world.

Paintings

A selection of his paintings may be seen here.

Acting in films

1933 : L'Ange gardien.
1934 : Mauvaise graine : The secretary.
1934 : L'Or : Zorloff.
1934 : Liebe, Tod und Teufel : Vikhom.
1935 : Le Diable en bouteille : Vikhom.
1936 : The First Offence.
1936 : Un de la légion : The russian legionnaire.
1937 : La Dame de Malacca : A guard.
1938 : La Tragédie impériale : Begger.
1938 : S.O.S. Sahara : Ivan.
1938 : Le Joueur.
1939 : Le Corsaire.
1939 : Derrière la façade : The taxi driver.
1939 : La Tradition de minuit : A gangster.
1939 : La Loi du nord.
1939 : Pièges.
1940 : Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
1940 : Les Musiciens du ciel.
1941 : Remorques : Un marin.