Joyeux Orchestre, Circa 1990

Raya Sorkine   Famous Artists

Born in Paris in 1936, Raya remained in hiding during the war with his mother, a Russian Jewish immigrant, as well as with the family of his mother whose name he adopted. This Slavic and Semitic atmosphere marked him deeply. He never stops looking for it and transcribing it through his paintings. Although born in France, he feels Russia running through his veins. A Russia he never knew except in the breath, in the dreams, in the memory of a mother. Raya is, as they say, "a child of the ball".

At the age of twelve, he left school and, barely fourteen, with a small sketchbook, he set off on the roads like a nomad. He sleeps under the stars. Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East… he goes everywhere, drawing or painting. Later, he buys a caravan to continue his travels. Throughout his wandering life which lasts nearly twenty years, he disperses his numerous paintings throughout the world, he marries four women, of whom he has seven daughters.

Raya Sorkine puts the visitor in front of a real pictorial fireworks display. We have here a painter of joy, of love which marks his heritage. He is the heir to one of the richest revolutions in the history of art, having known classicism, impressionism and neo, the explosion of modern art and its multiple schools, Cézanne, Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall.

He paints at night while listening to “his music” (cosmic or religious). His painting is deeply Slavic and deeply Jewish.