Jacques Germain. Very Large Double-sided Ink And Charcoal Drawing - Circa 1950

Jacques GERMAIN (1915-2001)
Abstract Composition
Circa 1950
Double-sided drawing
Ink wash over pencil lines
52.5 x 74.5 cm
Very good condition, just a small chip in the lower right corner (see photo) and a pinhole in the upper right corner.

French artist Jacques Germain was a student at the Académie Moderne, directed by Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant, when Blaise Cendrars and Fernand Léger advised his parents in 1931 to send him to the Bauhaus. He arrived in Dessau in October 1931 and stayed there for two semesters. He was the only Frenchman to study at the Bauhaus, where he attended classes taught by Kandinsky.

He returned to Paris by bicycle in July 1932. In October of the same year, he went back to Germany, to Frankfurt, where he attended classes taught by the Constructivist painter Willi Baumeister. There he met Marthe Robert, whom he married.

With the Nazis' rise to power, he returned to Paris and worked in advertising design. In September 1936, Jacques Germain completed his military service; war broke out a few years later, and the artist was taken prisoner and remained in captivity for three years.
Upon his return to France, he devoted himself primarily to painting.
In 1949, he held his first solo exhibition in Paris.
He also exhibited alongside Arp, Bryen, Fautrier, Hartung, Mathieu, Picabia, and others. He was a close friend of Antonin Artaud.

Germain was represented by various galleries, including the Maeght Gallery in 1951, the Kriegel Gallery (1961, 1965, 1969), the Pierre Loeb Gallery (1953), the Jacques Massol Gallery, the Dina Vierny Gallery (1961), the Arnoux Gallery, the Barbier-Beltz Gallery (from 1985 to 1997), and Antiquités/Galerie Duveau (2019).

In 1997, a major retrospective was held at the Couvent des Cordeliers in Paris.
Numerous works are held in public collections: the Oslo Museum, the Lille Museum of Fine Arts, the Bergen Museum, the Bremen Museum, the Lausanne Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.