Philippe Hosiasson

Philippe Hosiasson was a French painter of Ukrainian origin, born in Odessa on February 15, 1898 (February 27 in the Gregorian calendar) and died in Paris's 19th arrondissement on July 13, 1978.^[1]

Philippe Hosiasson grew up in Odessa in a family of merchants, relatives of the Russian writer Boris Pasternak (1890–1960). Between 1910 and 1912, Hosiasson traveled to Berlin with his parents and came into contact with Western avant-garde art. Having started to draw at a young age in 1912, he studided briefly at the Odessa School of Fine Arts. He subsequently studied law and art history at Odessa University, where he befriended the painter Fasini. In 1917, he published a text on El Greco. In 1918, he married Olga Bilinski,^[2] and in 1920, his university sent him to Rome, where he met André Derain, who was working for Diaghilev's ballets. Fascinated by Roman palaces, he sketched his surroundings- the crowd, the streets. In 1922, Hosiasson left for Berlin, where he became a set designer for the Russian Ballets for Boris Romanov. He arrived in Paris in 1924.^[2]

He was considered in France as part of the neo humanist group of artists, founded by Waldemar George. He decorated the Pavillon de la Martinique during the 1937 Paris World Fair. In 1939 he was mobilized to military service and gravely wounded near Dunkerque. During the Nazi occupation, Hosiasson lived in Toulouse, Nice and Marseille.^[2] In 1948 he returned to Paris.^[2] In 1956–1957 his works were displayed in the Museum of Modern Art.^[3] Some of his works are held in the Frailin collection.^[4]

• School of Paris