Ezekiel Baroukh
Biography
Ezekiel Baroukh
(1909, Alexandrie, Egypt - 1984)
Born in 1909 in Egypt, Ezekiel Baroukh left Alexandria for Rome where he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1934, he returned to Alexandria and participated in the artistic development of the country. He is particularly close with the movement "Art et Liberté" which, while prolonging the questions raised by the surrealist painters, seeks to reform the cultural and political life of Egypt.
His classical training mixed with his desire to bring new pictorial ideas, draws attention to his works exhibited in the salons of the country. He became friends with poets and writers such as Etiemble and Lawrence Durrell.
The evolution of his own painting, from figurative to abstraction, led him to enter the post-war avant-gardes. There starts a deep research in the heart of the abstract vocabulary, he moves away from Cubism towards a more informal art until a lyrical gesture perfectly mastered. He will be part of numerous group exhibitions, trade shows (1958, Salon de Mai, 1960, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 1980, Salon d'Automne), or biennales. At the Biennale of Conches, the exhibited work "100 figures" is acquired by the State.
After going to the limits of the monochrome in his “Recherches du vide” (1976-1978), Ezekiel Baroukh returns to figuration. As the art critic Georges Boudaille explains, he emerges the man "suddenly, but no longer academicly, reduced to his essence, his effigy. This outburst of Baroukh, in his last period, gave birth to a succession of pictures of a rare intensity and presence. " In the early 1980s, the newly created National Contemporary Art Fund purchased a major work, the " le Modèle". He is now presented in numerous private collections and exhibited in the museums of Paris, Cairo and Alexandria.
Exhibitions selected
Personal Exhibitions
1967 - Galerie 9, Paris
1960 - Galerie St-Germain, Paris
1956 - Musée de Châteauroux
1935 - Cercle Italien d'Alexandrie, Cairo, Egypte
Groupe shows
2017 – Comme un paysage, Galerie Françoise Livinec, Paris
1983 - Groupe 109, Grand Palais, Paris.
1968 - Exhibition Gallery Jacob and Gallery At Home, Paris et Toulouse
1958 - Gallery A.G, Paris
1953 - Buhrle prize exhibition, Gallery Kaganovitch, Paris
1949 - Exhibition of the lauréats of the Hallmark prize, Paris
1941 - Arts Indépendants, Caire
Salons
1980 - Salon d'automne, Paris
1961 - Biennale de Conches
1960 - Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris
1948 - Salon des Surindépendants, Paris
1942 - Salon des Indépendants, Le Caire
Collections
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Le Caire, Egypte
Musée des Beaux Arts, Alexandrie, Egypte
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Musée d’Art Moderne, Chateauroux, France
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, France
