Georges Dayez

GEORGES DAYEZ, (Paris, 1907 - 1991).
"Toledo, San Juan de los Reyes", 1965.
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed and titled on the back.
Size: 117 x 81 cm; 134.5 x 100 cm (frame).
Georges Dayez began his training with the sculptor Henry Arnold, while attending evening drawing classes. In 1926 he was accepted as a free pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts. During his military service, between 1927 and 1929, he obtained special leave to attend classes at Robert Wlérick's studio, where he met Edouard Pignon. He then moved to Paris with Pignon, and together they attended courses at the Academies of the Grande Chaumière and Julian, and visited the various museums of the French capital. In 1932 he showed his work for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants. During these years he formed the Association des Escrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires together with Pignon, Aragon, Eluard, Barbysse, Hélion and others, an organisation whose aim was to create art that embodied the struggle of the working class. From 1944 onwards Dayez exhibited regularly at the Paris Salons, and from the following decade onwards he held exhibitions of his work in various European and American capitals. He is represented at the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain and the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid, the Alvar Aalto Museum in Finland, the Yamagata in Japan, the Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea in Florence, the Kunstmuseum in Bern and New York University, among others. We see in this work a direct homage to the cubism of the early 20th century, to the plastic and aesthetic research of Braque and Picasso, the result being an analytical representation, which breaks down space and objects into planes.