Caziel

Caziel (born Kazimierz Józef Zielenkiewicz; 16 June 1906 – 25 August 1988) was a Polish artist who lived and worked in Paris during the inter-war period and who worked alongside a number of important figures of the School of Paris, including Pablo Picasso and the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Early years After a few years living in Russia, Caziel, his mother and stepfather fled Moscow, following the Russian Revolution (1917). Unable to return to their native Poland, they were forced to spend three years in Krasnoyarsk. Then a young boy, Caziel had to work for food and money, and among the many odd jobs he undertook he swept the studios of the local art school, as well as posing as a model for the life classes. Caziel was taken as a protégé of the art school director and was encouraged by other students to draw and to take interest in art. By the time Caziel and his parents finally reached Poland in 1920, he had decided he would be an artist. The early development of Caziel as a painter took place in Warsaw amongst artists greatly influenced by the School of Paris. His early work, dating 1930s, carried many features characteristic of the expressive manner later so explicit in the works painted in France. In 1931 Caziel entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and became one of the favoured students of Professor Tadeusz Pruszkowski, who ran the academy. Career in France During the Second World War, following the defeat of the Polish army, Caziel went into hiding in Aix-en-Provence, where he found himself at the centre of the milieu of Cézanne. As a tribute to the great modern master, Caziel painted a series of nudes, shaped by strong contour lines, placed in unusual compositions of depth and perspective and painted with simple colours. He also followed Cézanne in making the Mont Sainte Victoire his subject for a series of small oils.