Samson Flexor

Samson Flexor
Samson Flexor

Samson Flexor

Brazilian, born Romania, 1907–1971
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Birth placeSoroca, Romania
Death placeSão Paulo, Brazil
ActiveSão Paulo, Brazil
Biographyhttp://www.itaucultural.org.br/aplicExternas/enciclopedia_ic/index.cfm?

Samson Flexor (Soroca, Romania 1907 - São Paulo 1971). Painter, draughtsman, muralist, teacher. Travelled to Belgium in 1922, where he studied chemistry and took a painting course at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He moved to Paris in 1924, where he attended the free course of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts taught by Lucien Simon (1861 - 1945). In parallel, he took the history of art course at the Sorbonne. In 1926, he attended the La Grande Chaumière and Ranson academies, taking classes with Roger Bissière (1886 - 1964). In the following year, he held his first individual exhibition at the Campagne Première gallery, in Paris. In 1929, he took part in the founding of Salon des Surindépendants, which he directed until 1938. Following his conversion to Catholicism in 1933, he began to execute murals with religious themes. A member of the French résistance during the Second World War (1939-1945), he was forced to flee Paris. During this period, his works became sombre, with the artist beginning Expressionist and Cubist studies of the Passion of Christ. In 1946, he visited Brazil, exhibiting at the Galeria Prestes Maia [Prestes Maia Gallery], in São Paulo, to which city he moved in 1948. Encouraged by the critic, Léon Dégand (1907 - 1958), who was then director of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP [São Paulo Museum of Modern Art], he moved closer to geometric abstraction creating the Ateliê Abstração [Studio Abstraction] in 1951, with pupils that included Jacques Douchez (1921), Norberto Nicola (1930 - 2007), Leopoldo Raimo (1912), Alberto Teixeira (1925) and Wega Nery (1912 - 2007). In the mid-1960s, he moved towards lyrical abstraction and figuration.
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