Simon Segal (1898 – 1969) - Polish Painter - "the Flight Of Birds" Oil/canvas 60 X 73 Cm

Simon SEGAL (Białystok 1898 – Arcachon 1969)
“The Flight of Birds”
Oil on canvas signed lower right
60 x 73 cm (without frame)

Simon Segal (1898 - 1969) was a Polish painter of Jewish origin. He was born into a wealthy bourgeois Jewish family in Białystok. Little is known about his life in Białystok. His father owned commercial warehouses. His cousin, Molli Chwat (1888-1979), was a painter. In 1915, he and his family moved to Tver, where he studied at a Russian polytechnic school. After the end of the First World War, he returned with his family to his hometown of Białystok, but in 1918, he left for Berlin, where he painted his first portrait. He became involved with a group of mainly Russian artists centered around Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Yesenin. He began illustrating Spolochi, an avant-garde Berlin periodical devoted to Russian émigrés. In 1924, he went to Vienna to visit his mother's sister, then joined a traveling circus troupe. In 1925, he moved to Paris, where he initially led a carefree bohemian life, a regular at the Cafés du Dôme, la Rotonde, and la Coupole. In 1926, he left for Toulon, where he met Bruno Bassano, a political refugee and opponent of Mussolini, an art dealer who would remain his friend for the rest of his life. After his family stopped supporting him, he was forced to take jobs as a librarian, a worker in a Citroën car factory, and a stylist for fashion designer Paul Poiret. In 1929, Segal's first exhibition of work took place at the Trento Gallery in Toulon. In 1933, he returned to Paris, where in 1935 he exhibited around thirty Visions of War gouaches at the Billet-Worms Gallery (the works were purchased by the American collector Frank Altschul). He spent World War II in Crouste near Aubusson, where he worked as a farmhand and in an upholstery factory. He married. After the war, he returned to Paris, then settled near Cap de la Hague. In 1949, he obtained French citizenship. In 1953, after his wife left him, he returned to Paris. Over the next few years, he participated in numerous exhibitions there. After 1960, he moved into a small studio in Montmartre. He traveled to the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. He died in August 1969 and is buried in Arcachon.