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 along the edge of the margin (see photos), which can be easily hidden during framing with a passe-partout or with a light pastel touch.

Express shipping with included art-specific insurance.

Jean Jansem, pseudonym of Ohannès Semerdjian, born March 9, 1920 in Seuleuze (Sölöz) near Bursa, Turkey, and died August 27, 2013 at his home in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher (Loir-et-Cher), is a French painter, sculptor and printmaker of Armenian origin. Ohannès Semerdjian was born in Turkey to Armenian parents, his father an industrialist in the silk 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 at that time.

Due to hospital care requirements at the age of ten because of broken foot bones, he came to France accompanied by his mother, where, after four years of immobilization in a hospital (including six months with the Brothers of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God near Dinan2), he took over a large space in Issy-les-Moulineaux, established his workshop there and painted, already with success, portraits and landscapes. He nevertheless attended evening classes at the Beaux-Arts workshops of the City of Paris at 80, Boulevard du Montparnasse, while also attending a preparatory school at Place des Vosges. Then, fairly adequately supporting himself by painting letters for greyhound racing at night, then by practicing photographic retouching, in 1936 he became a pupil of Maurice Brianchon, Raymond Legueult and Roland Oudot at the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris, where he obtained his diploma in 1938. With the war coming, he was discharged due to his foot and worked in a gas mask factory until the Liberation, while continuing to paint. He became a naturalized French citizen 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, in Italy, he painted and drew en plein air notably bullfighting, processions, markets, carnivals and studio scenes. Simultaneously he produced lithographs and engravings related to his themes.

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

Two museums have dedicated exhibitions 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 Museum of Genocide in Yerevan.

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