Artists of the Time- Marcel Slodki

Marcel Slodki (1892-1943)


Marcel Slodki's design for "Das Börsenlied" (lyrics: Walter Mehring, music: Friedrich Hollaender)

- as performed by Trude Hesterberg in her "Wilde Bühne," November 1921

http://www.ecoledeparis.org/artists/view/marcel_slodki

Slodki was born into a liberal, laic family. His father was a bank manager.

In 1910 Slodki moved to Munich to study at the Fine Art Academy.

In 1913 he moved to Paris and lived for one year in Rousseau’s former atelier.

Moving to Switzerland in 1914 he met Tristan Tzara, drew Dada posters for a cabaret entitled "La Scene" and illustrated several Tchekoff works. He also designed plans for an architect. These he used in later works. He returned to Poland and painted landscapes of Kazimierz and Kuzmir, then travelled to England and continued to paint in London. At the end of the First World War he worked in Berlin designing theatre sets.

In 1923 he returned to Paris and resumed painting. He destroyed all his former work inspired by cubism, which he later regretted.

In 1937 he returned to Poland for a solo exhibition. He painted portraits, city scenes and still life compositions. He married Macha Boulanger, a painter who signed her works “Mabull”. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Slodki left Poland to join his wife in Brives, resuming his painting and exhibiting his work in spite of the difficulties of war.

In 1943 the gendarmes came to arrest him, but he had been alerted by the Brives sous-prefet. He hid, received forged identity papers and fled with Mabull to Chambéry. They settled in Bourg-Saint-Maurice. On December 14, 1943, Mabull and Slodki were denounced and arrested by Gestapo agents.

They were interned in Drancy and deported on December 17, 1943 on convoy n° 63.

They were assassinated in Auschwitz.

Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boyé, Paul Fogel
"Peintres Juifs à Paris 1905-1939 Ecole de Paris"
Editons Denoel 2000