Artistes en Atelier

Michel Sima Photographe

Exhibition: 2 April til 2 May 2009

Vernissage: 2 April, 5 to 8 p.m.

Galerie Latham

Rue de la Corraterie 22

CH - 1204 Genève

tel.: +41 (0) 22 310 10 77

info@galerie-latham.com

www.galerie-latham.com

Michel Sima’s work with photographic portraits of artists began essentially in 1946. That year Sima followed the creative process for Pablo Picasso’s La joie de vivre. In doing so he not only documented the various stages in the artistic execution (as was his original intention), but also considered his work from the very outset as a holistic, personal representation of the artist and his oeuvre. In the following years, he portrayed nearly all the artists at the École de Paris, artists such as Henri Matisse, François Picabia, Ossip Zadkine, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Tal Coat, Jean Arp, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Le Corbusier, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, and Alexander Calder. Sima’s underlying affinity towards, and friendship with, those portrayed shone through in all of these artists’ portraits, not just in the photographs of Picasso. It expressed itself by capturing most sensitively the personality and work of each particular artist. The relationship established with both the work and the studio as part of his setup is also cleverly used to allow the portrayed artist to express himself, as it were. The result is an idiosyncratic style of (artist) portraiture using the medium of photography, a unique documentation of the artists at the École de Paris, unequalled by any other photographer in its cohesiveness and sensitivity.

Literature

The Monograph Michel Sima - Artists in their Studio (Dr. Erika Billeter/Dr. Kuno Fischer), Benteli Verlag 2007 ("Deutscher Fotobuchpreis - Nominiert 2009"), available at www.benteli.ch.