Jean Carzou

Born Karnig Zouloumian in 1907, in Aleppo, Syria, Jean Carzou moved to Cairo with his mother and sister after the death of his father in 1919. In 1924, he received a scholarship to study at the Ecole Special d'Architecture in Paris. There, he also attended the Academy Montparnasse. In 1930 he graduated from the school of architecture, but became attracted to painting. His first paintings were experiments in abstract art against a black background; however, he abandoned these experiments after 1938 and his palette took on more color. In a 1955 survey conducted by the prestigious Connaissance des Arts, Carzou was acclaimed one of the ten major painters of his generation. Carzou is also known as an illustrator of literary editions: Jules Verne, Andre Maurois, Audiberti, Albert Camus, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, T.S. Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, Hemingway, etc. He achieved instant fame in 1952 for his sets and costumes for the Paris Opera production of Rameau's Les Indes Galantes, followed by six other opera and stage productions for the Comedie Francaise and the Harkness Dance Company of New York. He has also designed tapestries, frescoes, ceramics, enamels, French postage stamps, engravings, and lithographs. The foundation Jean Carzou operates the Carzou Museum in Monasque, France, where a medieval church entirely painted with his Apocalypse frescoes serves as the focal point. In 1977, Carzou was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts. He has had more than a hundred solo exhibitions in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, England, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, the United States, Canada, and Japan.