Jean Jansem (1920-2013) - Femme au balcon

Jean JANSEM (1920-2013 - Woman on the Balcony
Original lithograph on vellum paper measuring 74 x 55 cm.
Numbered 71/80 and signed in pencil by the artist.

Work in good condition, never framed.
The piece shows a few signs of aging at the edge of the margin (see photos), which can easily be concealed during framing with a mat or by a light pastel retouch.

Shipped express with specific art insurance included.

Jean Jansem, pseudonym of Ohannès Semerdjian, born March 9, 1920 in Seuleuze (Sölöz) near Bursa in Turkey, and who died on August 27, 2013 at his home in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher (Loir-et-Cher), is a French painter, sculptor and engraver of Armenian origin. Ohannès Semerdjian was born in Turkey to Armenian parents, his father an industrialist in the silk thread trade, and the war that broke out in 1922 between Turkey and Greece forced his family to emigrate to Thessaloniki where they resumed silk work, and where he spent his childhood, his interest in painting leading him to reproduce scenes from ancient mythology.

The need for hospital care at age ten, due to broken bones in his feet, brought him to France with his mother, where, after four years of immobilization in a hospital (including six months with the Brothers of the Hospitalier Order of Saint John of Dios near Dinan2), he occupied a large studio in Issy-les-Moulineaux, established his workshop and already painted successfully portraits and landscapes. He nevertheless followed evening classes at the Beaux-Arts ateliers of the City of Paris at 80, boulevard du Montparnasse, while also attending a preparatory school on Place des Vosges. Then, managing his subsistence fairly well by painting at night letters for greyhound racing correspondence, and later by practicing photographic retouching, he became a student of Maurice Brianchon, Raymond Legueult and Roland Oudot at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1936, obtaining his diploma in 1938. When war came, he was exempted due to his foot and worked in a gas mask factory until the Liberation, while continuing to paint. He was naturalized French in 1940, participated in the Salon des indépendants in 1941 and continued to attend the studios of Yves Brayer, Jean Aujame, Édouard Georges Mac-Avoy and Édouard Goerg at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière until his selection for the Autumn Salon in 1945.

During numerous stays in Greece (first return in 1950), in Spain, and in Italy, he painted and drew from nature, notably bullfighting, processions, markets, carnivals and studio scenes. At the same time he executed lithographs and engravings related to his themes.

In 1957, his career became international. He exhibited in Italy, Switzerland, England and especially the United States. In 1969, the Mitsukoshi Gallery presented a retrospective of his works in Tokyo and, since then, his work has regularly been shown in Japan.

Two museums are dedicated to him: in Ginza (Tokyo), in 1992, and in Azumino, in 1993.

In 2002, he traveled to Armenia for the official inauguration of his exhibition “Massacres” at the Genocide Museum in Yerevan.

Died on August 27, 2013, Jean Jansem rests in the Clamart communal cemetery.