Henry Maurice Biography
Maurice Henry (Cambrai, 20 December 1907 – Milan, 21 October 1984) was a French poet and painter. He was also active as a filmmaker, art and film critic, photographer and humorist. Born in northern France, he studied in Douai, Paris and Lille. In 1927 he settled in Paris, where he enrolled in the Faculty of Law. He is in contact with a group of young poets and philosophers, with whom he founds the ''Grand Jeu'' movement: the game is understood as an art of living. He collaborates with the magazines ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' and ''Paris Montparnasse''. He is in contact with Robert Desnos, frequents André Breton, Benjamin Péret, Louis Aragon, and then Roger Vitrac and Jacques Prévert. From 1928 he collaborated with texts, poems and drawings in the movement's magazine ''Grand Jeu'' and participated in the group's exhibition at the Galerie Bonaparte in Paris. He collaborates as an editor and reporter with several Parisian newspapers, including Le Petit Journal, Cinemonde, Agence Haves, Revue du Cinéma, Pour Vous and Humanité. In 1932, having exhausted the ''Grand Jeu'' experience, he moved on to the surrealist movement, collaborating on its publications and participating in its exhibitions. His humor veers towards the unusual and cruelty, increasingly mocking the absurdity of everyday life, the tragic side of common existence, against which the spirit and unconscious rebel, attempting to access the unobservable. He meets Salvador Dalí. He publishes poems and drawings in ''Le Surréalisme au Service de la Révolution''. In 1935 he was in Prague and participated in the surrealist exhibition in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. He also begins to collaborate with ''Konkretion'' of Copenhagen. In 1936 he participated in the first exhibition of surrealist objects at the Parisian Galerie Charles Ratton with ''Assemblage. Homage to Paganini''. In 1939 he also began his career as a filmmaker, which was destined to last over sixteen years, during which he wrote the screenplays for around twenty films. In 1949 he wrote and directed the film ''Rondo sur la piste''. In 1941 his first solo exhibition took place in Paris, at the Galerie La Peau de Chagrin: the presentation was by Jean Cocteau, the first buyer was Pablo Picasso. Since 1944 he has collaborated with Albert Camus on the magazine ''Combat''. In 1949 he staged Tristan Bernard's ''Le petit café'' at the Théâtre Antoine. He took part in all the surrealist exhibitions, including the international one in 1947, at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. In 1951, due to issues relating to the internal discipline of the group, he abandoned the surrealist movement with others, while continuing to practice its poetics, based on unsettling incongruous juxtapositions, dreams and psychic automatisms. In 1955 he also became passionate about photography; his shots are exhibited in New York, Rochester, Amsterdam and Milan. In 1957 he was elected member of the Jazz Academy, of the Comité des programs of French radio and television and of the Académie Charles Cros for the awarding of recording prizes. He spent a few months in Vallauris, where Picasso taught him how to work with ceramics. Since 1960 he has approached ''paper sculpture''. In 1963 he designed sets and costumes for a ballet at the Paris Opéra, an experience he repeated in 1966 at the Städtische Bühne in Heidelberg. Since 1968 he has dedicated himself almost exclusively to painting, abandoning his activity as a humorous illustrator. He settles in Milan. Several of his important solo shows took place in Italy: in Milan at Marconi and at the Annunciata, in Venice at Il Traghetto, in Turin at Viotti; a large anthology is presented at the Sala Civica of the Municipality of Modena. In 1972 he edited the volume ''Graphic Anthology of Surrealism'' for Edizioni Mazzotta in Milan. In 1976 over a hundred works were exhibited at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He also becomes a television personality. On 21 October 1984 he suffered a cardiovascular collapse while driving his car in Milan.
