Leon Gischia Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Léon Gischia was a French painter born in Dax in 1903.

His father was a Piedmontese engineer and Léon attended the History of Art studies in Bordeaux and the Ecole Normale Supérieur in Paris. In 1921 he enrolled in the Modern Academy directed by Othon Friesz and in 1925 he made a trip to Italy and Spain, while from 1927 to 1930 he moved to the United States of America. Read the full biography

Leon Gischia Biography

Léon Gischia was a French painter born in Dax in 1903.

His father was a Piedmontese engineer and Léon attended the History of Art studies in Bordeaux and the Ecole Normale Supérieur in Paris. In 1921 he enrolled in the Modern Academy directed by Othon Friesz and in 1925 he made a trip to Italy and Spain, while from 1927 to 1930 he moved to the United States of America. Returning to France, he met Fernand Léger, who taught at the Modern Academy, and resumed painting. In 1936 he joined the Forces Nouvelles painting movement, which gave a decisive impetus to his career. In 1941 he collaborated in the exhibition of "Young painters of the French tradition" with Jean Le Moal, the first manifestation of avant-garde painting under the Nazi occupation. Gischia aimed to overcome Cubism by harmonizing it with Fauvism, using visions taken from the natural world. This path of pictorial transformation took the form of a more hermetic style, characterized by a uniform background color and a deep attention to geometric inlays, which made the figure a formal theme. His artistic career was divided into three phases: from 1917 to 1942 for figuration, from 1946 to 1960 for abstraction, and from 1960 until his death for lively geometrization. Gischia was a founding member of the Salon de Mai, in which he participated from 1945 to 1957 and collaborated in the staging of thirty theatrical productions and shows by Jean Vilar, as set designer and costume designer, respecting his own taste and compositional style, with the addition of surreal elements. In addition to painting, he was also very interested in art and wrote several very interesting essays, such as Sculpture in France after Rodin and Primitive Arts in France. He also illustrated numerous books with valuable woodcuts, including some by Shakespeare.

He passed away in Venice in 1991.