Michel Sementzeff (1933-2019) - Paysage de neige

OIL ON KNIFE 80X80 IN EXCELLENT CONDITION

Michel Sementzeff is a French figurative painter and lithographer born on February 16, 1933 in Boulogne-Billancourt, died on November 29, 2019 in Lisieux. Michel Sementzeff studied at the École supérieure des arts modernes (ESAM) in Paris before becoming a teacher of drawing, painting and display in the same institution for thirty-five years, alongside his career as a painter which he began at the end of the 1950s[1].

A member of the Salon d'automne and the Salon des artistes français, he resided at 27, rue des Pommerets in Sèvres[2] before finally settling in Saint-Désir-de-Lisieux.

“His landscapes, motionless, reveal distant escapes toward the infinite where the horizon slips away, dragged by the sky and merging with the fields and the houses. Sometimes the strong lines of the trees break free like impulses of energy, giving rhythm to the painting and energizing it. Michel Sementzeff offers us a contemplation of nature where hours seem suspended “between dog and wolf,” when day and night hesitate to yield to one another, which lends them a mystery, like the waiting for a revelation. As for his still lifes, they are of a more secret tone, like a minor key, where the presence of familiar objects becomes a pretext for a creative invention of composition, materials and plays of light. One senses here, so to speak, an even more painterly quality, giving free rein to his creative joy. In his figures there appears another facet of his personality; a more theatrical inspiration attracts him, leading him a little further toward the timeless, creating a very personal world where his imagination soars, completely free. He opens here toward an even more intimate part of himself, like a confidence he offers us, thereby creating a privileged passage between him and us in an exchange of soul to soul between the giver and the receiver. Michel Sementzeff is among those few contemporary figurative painters who give art a dimension of eternity.” — Patrice de la Perrière[17]}}{}