Le livre des livres, 1970

Serge Charchoune   Famous Artists

Serge Charchoune, in Russian Sergei Ivanovich Charchoun, is a Russian painter and poet born August 4, 1889 in Bougourouslan in Russia and died November 24, 1975 in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Between 1900 and 1905 he studied at the Simbirsk Business School and at the same time began to take an interest in painting. Called to the army, he deserted in 1912 and left for Berlin, then for Paris where he enrolled at the Russian academy of Mr. Vassilieva and at the La Palette academy. In 1914, when the war began, Charchoune left for Barcelona and became fascinated by the geometric patterns of Spanish azulejos. In the 1920s, he attended the Dada Festival in the Salle Gaveau and attended meetings of the Dadaists at the Certá café located in the Passage de l'Opéra. He also took part in Dada events, notably the “Barrès trial” organized by André Breton in May 1921 and was interested in the anthroposophy of R. Steiner. In Berlin, in 1922, he exhibited a new series of paintings which he called “ornamental cubism”. In the 1940s, his work became more and more abstract and stripped down. He turned in particular to the theme of water and produced a series of monochrome paintings. From 1950 until the end of his life, he continued to work on the principles of abstraction through music. He is also the author of the novel Dolgolikov and numerous prose texts. His work has been exhibited in France and Russia.