by Jochen Michaelis

Jochen MICHAELIS
"WHITE PARIS, FOGGY DAWN"
"From Paris City of Light to Dusty Paris"


The Post-War "WHITE PARIS" Solo Show in Lise Cormery Art Gallery, Paris, by the German painter from the School of Paris, Jochen MICHAELIS in 2021 presents 53 paintings on thick paper, executed and signed by the artist during the 60s and 70s, mainly from 1966, during his stay in Paris then "City of Light", which has since become "Paris Dusty City".
This preface is published in the book "The Art of Post-War School of Paris" by Lise Cormery, text written for the Solo Show of "PARIS BLANC" during the 1993 Michaelis Tribute at Lise Cormery Gallery, Art et Communication Paris, in 1993 and during the Paris Art Olympiads in 1991 and 1992.

"This WHITE PARIS plays on the melancholy of Paris, with its pale mornings, its bistros misted up by alcohol, when a thin fog is creeping up from the Seine River, and Paris is suddenly wrapped into a fluffy pale veil.
At dawn Michaelis observes two crowds, two worlds crossing each other but ignoring one another, the wandering night-owls with their hangovers, nicknamed "Fêt'Arts" or "Couche Tard" just out from nightclubs rushing into bistros that have just opened to have a last coffee or a nightcap, while the invisible workers and sweepers are already starting their long day's work."

WHITE PARIS exhibition opens with the innocent, the lonely "Le Rêveur The day dreamer", a little lost in this world of false pretenses. Like the painter, he is the one who observes, who lives and who dreams of Paris with "Paris blanc Le dreamer, White Paris Day Dreamer ". Just like the "Pêcheur du bord de Seine, Fisherman on the banks of the Seine River", in silence, they observe the movement of these two worlds which ignore each other although they share Paris universe.

In this world of WHITE PARIS, there are those who are already busy while Paris is just awake. With "Balayeurs au petit matin, Sweepers in early morning", "Les ouvriers En route vers le chantier, Workers On the way to the construction site", "Usines sur les quais, Factories on the Seine River banks", The boatmen at work with "Voguer sur la Seine dans le brouillard, Cruising along the foggy Seine", "The Seine Two barges and a sailboat", or"Barge in the fog". With the very first metros Michaelis does not forget "Le poinçonneur du métro Subway controller", "Eiffel Tower and Subway entrance", "The subway exit in the pale early morning", "Le Funiculaire Montmartre", "Urban scene 1 The Metro", "La Parisienne in the metro", "Paris Blanc Urban scene 2", "Café crème at the bistro".



In WHITE PARIS with the painting "Waiting on the Seine banks", some Parisians emerge, from a subway station, are they returning home to finally sleep or are they on their way to a morning job ? The cheerful light of the green color of a car is appearing coming out from the heaviest fog, thus "Quais de Seine green car in the early morning" and "Green car on the quays" gives a touch of joyful life to this melancholic universe.
In this pale morning, Michaelis is watching and painting "The Lady with the little dog" she is walking her pet outside while the eternal character of Paris yesteryear remains with "The concierge spies at her window".

WHITE PARIS INSIDE OUTSIDE
A whole world transcribed by the imagination of Michaelis becomes enigmatic. Some are still having fun, they are "The Parisians at Bowling White Paris Parisians playing Bowling" or at "La discothèque The night-club", "La danse au cabaret Cabaret dancing", "Danser au night-club", which soon meet again "Around the bar", or "Portrait in a bistro". We discover gentlemen wearing what was so fashionable in the 70's, an Astrakhan toque, "Au bistro, l'homme à la toque d'Astrakan", "The man with the astrakhan hat and the call-girl", "Astrakhan toque man and lady", or "Bistro Dice players". Bistros with "La Belle Parisienne", "The painter", "The inspired poet and the magnificent", and "At the restaurant" the artist is playing on white and black shades, describing the active atmosphere of waiters and customers.

WHITE PARIS "LE BONJOUR"
Without forgetting, the anonymous people, the crowd of Parisians, who, for a few moments greet each other and then disappear into the pale day, Michaelis is painting "Le Bonjour", "The meeting", "Six passants Six passers-by", "Four Parisians The Conversation", "Cinq Parisiens, Five Parisians", "Cinq Parisiens sur ciel pourpre Five Parisians on Purple sky". Soon "Les Bouquinistes, Booksellers on Seine banks" will open, and rich Parisians will leave the city for a "Parisian weekend in Normandy".

WHITE PARIS OF HOMELESS BRANCUSI AND AVATI
"Two homeless people asleep in the hope of the sun rising on the Eiffel Tower of White Paris".
With this oniric painting of 1966 PARIS triumphs with its Eiffel Tower haloed in pink and blue, but Paris Blanc is also yesteryear and today homeless refugees. They are still probably hiding to sleep at night in the church of Saint Germain des Prés, as did Mario AVATI, the great master of the Manière Noire.
So did the famous sculptor BRANCUSI, who after his studies from 1984 until 1898, in Craiova Art et métiers and from 1898 to 1901 to the National Art University of Bucarest in order to improve his art and attracted by Paris, at that time, the City of Light, had to walk from Romania until Paris from 1903 until 1905 to reach the town.

Once arrived in Paris, after being homeless for a long time Brâncusi found a shelter in the Romanian Cathedral of Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais in Latin District and finally studied at Beaux-Art de Paris to become the new master of sculpture.
In Michaelis Paris of yesteryear, his painting of 1966 "White Paris blanc Deux clochards endormis dans l'espoir lorsque le jour se lève sur la Tour Eiffel Two homeless people asleep in the hope of the sun rising on the Eiffel Tower of White Paris", nevertheless hope remains today.

Lise Cormery, "The Art of Post-War Ecole de Paris", Michelangelo, Paris

BIOGRAPHY Jochen MICHAELIS
Jochen Michaelis, a fine observer of the theater of life in Paris
Jochen Michaelis was born in Postdam, Germany in 1938. Lise Cormery in her book "The art of the Post-War Ecole de Paris" writes his biography. "Michaelis born in Germany in 1938 studied and settled many years in Paris and thus belongs to the German Post-War Ecole de Paris. Indeed, in the fifties, Germany is still deeply injured, art schools are destroyed, the country divided into East and West with the Berlin wall and artists have to find a shelter in order to create in peace, far away from political turmoil.
He is the grandson of Georg Michaelis (1857-1936), Minister President of Prussia and in 1917 German imperial Chancellor of Germany, heading the administration of Pomerania from 1918 to 1919. Jochen Michaelis studies at Kassel KunstAkademie, Germany. In Paris Beaux-Arts he studies painting with Chapelain Midy and lithography with Clarin. He will perfect his knowledge of art printing in Pratt Graphis Center of New York later on.
Michaelis travels and exhibits his paintings of a keen and poetic observer of people in their daily life in Paris, New York, Berlin and also during a trip in Mexico.
In Paris his artistic career is launched very fast and he becomes famous very young, exhibited in many art galleries in Paris. In 1958, he is only twenty years old and all the Press and Art critics are acclaiming his paintings and soon he belongs to all the important collections of contemporary art.
For art critic and art magazine "ARTS", "Michaelis is painting scenes of daily life like did Bonnard or Lautrec, with ambiguous faces lost in vast spaces. He is fascinated by the loneliness of people lost in moving crowds." For "Le Monde", "Michaelis creates large and very personal compositions full of energy where humor is not forgotten." "Combat", a left-wing newspaper, the most powerful Post-War media making or breaking artistic careers, with signatures of famous writers like Albert Camus, Raymond Aron, André Gide, writes an important article devoted to Michaelis with a photo of the artist sitting in the middle of dozens of paintings on the ground, one can recognize on the lower right "The Parisian with false eyelashes" painted in his expressionist manner. The "Combat" art critic writes a long text on Michaelis, "His painting is a dream sometimes bitter, full of tenderness, sometimes with a sense of humor, rhythm and violence. He is a painter of a Parisian way of life, recreating scenes of daily life" like Daumier did."
"Michaelis in his "Paris Orange" and "White Paris" is painting The Humble against the Arrogant. With his series of paintings "Night in Paris", the crowds in quest of pleasure and dressed for the occasion and his series of "Parisians" are devoted to portraits of typical inhabitants of the city.
When in 1958 Michaelis is starting painting Paris in "Orange", it is still a rare color, very seldom used in the past. A long time after him, in the 70's it will become very fashionable and Orange will become the Must Color for designers, and everything will be declined with Orange in fashion, design, advertising.
Paris, during the 60's and 70's is a paradox where two different worlds are confronted, the humble Paris of old stones attached to Paris City of Light of yesteryear against the presumptuous Paris, in love with concrete and "progress".
Michaelis is painting in 1968 "Paris Détruit, Géraniums et pelleteuse Orange" "Destroying Paris, Orange Geraniums and Orange Excavator", depicting the forgotten world of the humble, victim of the Bouygues "Orange excavator" destroying modest or historical homes in Montparnasse and Latin Quarter district. Although hope remains in heart, some keep flourishing their humble windows with "Orange geraniums", as an act of resistance, giving a touch of light to forgotten shelters that desperate Parisians don't want to leave for suburbs lost in nowhere.
While the humble remains frightened, petrified by the destruction of Paris, the arrogant Paris with the paintings "Cocktail Party" and "Maître d'hôtel" in chic restaurants and night-clubs, tearing away cultural Paris with recklessness, enjoys life. Paris is vibrating with joy, life is still cheap and some well-off students "Daddy's boy" are "provoking" the world, everything is permitted for these rich petty-bourgeois dilettantes, honking like grownups. They want the world to believe they are making a "Revolution", although "68" is nothing but a chaos created by spoilt and greedy kids. These ambitious petty-bourgeois want the arrogation of media and political power and indeed they will get it and it is still within their arrogant hands.
Michaelis, observe the birth of a new Paris, between hope and despair. Two worlds are still fighting. Old stones of yesteryear Paris, where sculptor Pablo Gargallo in his modest Montparnasse studio harbored the newcomer Picasso, where they were fed by the fresh eggs of the hen running happily in his tiny garden, so far away from the ugly invasion of concrete. Montparnasse is brutally destroyed. Instead of the romantic Paris, Bouygues concrete and ugliness is invading the city with highways along the Seine River and gigantic towers in La Defense, so arrogant, and like the Twin Towers, they are believing they are just indestructible. And beyond Michaelis times observing Paris, nowadays the massacre of many preserved blocks of 14th arrondissement continues with the closing of hospitals while Covid is killing.
In his "White Paris, foggy pale dawn From Paris City of Light to Dusty Paris" the painter plays on the melancholy of Paris, with its pale mornings, its bistros misted up by alcohol, when a thin fog is creeping up from the Seine River, and Paris is suddenly wrapped into a fluffy pale veil. At dawn Michaelis observes two crowds, two worlds crossing each other but ignoring one another, the wandering night-owls with their hangovers, nicknamed "Fêt'Arts" or "Couche Tard" just out from nightclubs rushing into bistros that have just opened to take a last coffee or a nightcap, meanwhile the invisible workers are rushing out of subways, sweepers as well as construction workers are already starting their long day's work.
Starting in 1958, many Paris and New York art galleries showed Michaelis paintings and sold them to private collectors, where they still belong. Thanks to their recovery we can discover the spirit prevailing in this lost Paris, a poetic world between abstract and figurative painting, with elegant ladies, typical open-air markets and picturesque characters meeting in bistros, playing dice in the early morning or sharing a "café crème. A lost beloved Michaelis dreamlike Paris."
INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIONS His paintings sold by art galleries are still in private hands in Paris, New York and in Germany.
Some International SOLO SHOWS International SOLO SHOWS
1958 Galerie de la Maison des Beaux-Arts Paris 1959 Galerie Glaser-Cordier, Paris 1962 1963 Galerie d'art J. Montana 124, rue du faubourg Saint Honoré, Paris 1964 1967 Galerie Jacques Casanova, Palais-Royal, Paris 1971 Galerie Fischbacher, 33, rue de Seine, Paris 1979 Galerie Raesfeld, Cologne, Allemagne 1979 Galerie Nonson, Soho, New York 1982 Profile Gallery, New York 1984 Galerie Raspail Rive Gauche, Paris 1985 Profile Gallery, New York 1985 1986 Galerie du Marais, Paris 1986 Galerie Raspail Rive Gauche, Paris 1987 Galerie du Marais, Paris 1988 Galerie Tullagasse 2, Breisach am Rhein, Allemagne 1989 Reece Gallery, New York 1991 1992 Galerie Lise Cormery Olympiades des Arts 1992 Montserrat Gallery, New York 1992 The Emerging Collector Gallery, New York 1992 Galerie Bassler Freiburg, Allemagne 1992 Galerie Tullagasse 2, Breisach am Rhein, Allemagne 1993 Montserrat Gallery, New York 1993 Galerie Lise Cormery 1993 1994 1995 1997 Galerie Museum Egon Von Kameke, Postdam, Allemagne. Lukacs Gallery Toronto & De Silgahi Gallery, Burlington, Canada. Magda Fröhlich Art Dealer in Zurich, London, New-York.
PARIS OLYMPIADS
In 1991 and 1992, under the High Patronage of French President Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, Mayor of Paris, he was selected to represent Germany during the Art Olympiads organized by Lise Cormery Gallery for the CNOSF, French Olympic Committee. This international event was following the famous 1988 Art Olympiads in Seoul, South Korea, where a monumental sculptures Museum in open air and a Museum of International paintings was created for the world competition, in order to invite and show the art of major international artists of the 20th Century.
INTERNATIONAL ART CRITIC PRESS - PRESSE CRITIQUE D'ART INTERNATIONALE
1958 "Arts" 14.10. 1958, "Le Monde" 17.10.1958, "L'Amateur d'Art" 25.10.1958, "Le Figaro" 10. 1958, "Combat" 27.10.1958, "Masques et Visages" Septembre 1958, "L'information" Octobre 1958. 1962 "Echos des Arts" 10. 1962, "Le Hors-Cote" Mars & Avril, "Combat" Avril. 1963 "Les Arts", "Combat" 8 & 23 mars, "ARTS", "Les Echos", "Pariser Kurier", "Die Welt", "Carnet des Arts". 1964 "Combat", "ARTS". 1967 "Santé Publique". 1968 Couverture Cover "La Légion Violette, Revue de La Légion d'Honneur, des Palmes Académiques Arts et Lettres". 1979 "Manhattan East" New York. 1982 1984 "Art Speak" New York. "ART New York". 1994 "Spiegel", "Der Welt". 1984 "L'amateur d'art" 1986 "L'amateur d'art".
SOME PUBLICATIONS QUELQUES PUBLICATIONS
Gerhard Werner Weber, Solange Lemaire, Gérard Weber, Catherine de Hulewicz, François Pluchart, Cate Miodini, Phyllis Lee, Palmer Poroner, Elvira Kühn, Claude Lesuer, Claude Dorval, Lise Cormery.