Gen Paul, peintre maudit

Includes bibliographical references (pages 123-128)Gen Paul, a major French expressionist painter, can be characterized as a peintre maudit in the tradition of Utrillo, Modigliani, Pascin, and Soutine, who were active at the beginning of the twentieth century in Paris. Gen Paul's achievements in painting were no less important than theirs. During his lifetime, Gen Paul was acknowledged by critics and renowned contemporary writers to have been a great expressionistic painter, in fact, one of the outstanding painters of France. Nevertheless he was neglected by art-historians, art dealers, and museums.\ud Gen Paul fulfills all of the characteristics set by Maurice Serullaz for a cursed painter; his idiosyncratic lifestyle and impossible behavior discouraged normal dealings with art professionals. He was the expressionistic painter of movement, impelled by an obsession to create on canvas the dynamic motion denied him by his crippling handicap. He invented pictorial devices through which his paintings achieved a sense of disturbing movement which can be observed throughout his four periods.\ud Gen Paul's relationship to members of the literary circle (Celine, Ayme, Carco, Anouilh) who met in the 1930s and ear1y 1940s in his studio in Montmartre places Gen Paul in the artistic milieu of this time in France. In particular, the friendship between Gen Paul and Celine exerted an influence on the work of both of them