Lot 19
Michel Ciry (1919-2018)
Lot 19 Details
Michel Ciry (1919-2018), French
L'EPAVE, 1959
Oil on canvas; signed and dated /59 lower right, signed, titled and dated /59 in black crayon to the stretcher, titled to gallery label verso.
51 ins x 38 ins; 129.5 cms x 96.5 cms
Estimate $800-$1,200
Additional Images
Provenance:
With Arthur Lenars & Cie., Paris, France label verso;
Galerie Dresdnere, Montreal gallery, Inventory No. 669 gallery label verso;
Private Collection, Toronto
Note:
Michel Ciry was a multi-talented French artist. He was a master of the etching medium. He also designed postage stamps and illustrated literary classics by authors ranging from Emily Bronte to Franz Kafka. Ciry was a composer of six symphonies and a soloist. He published 36 volumes of memoirs that he had begun writing in 1942. First published in 1971, his memoirs, recorded by dated entries, made no secret that he would rather have lived in the 17th century than in an age of decline “when the lie is sacred and counterfeiting is legalized.”
Ciry was a devout Christian whose art was largely devoted to sacred themes. He chose to remain celibate, living in self-imposed exile from the Paris art scene for over fifty years on the sea coast of Normandy in Varengeville-sur-Mer. Ciry has been described as an “artist of solitude.” His figurative studies are testimony to the solitary life he lived. They are like lone actors on a stage empty of all but essential props; similarly, his landscapes are barren. There is no one present in the mist of “Fog in New York, Central Park.””