Alexander Sosnowsky (sacha Sosno) Biography
Alexandre Joseph Sosnowsky, (1937 – 2013), better known by the name Sacha Sosno, was an internationally renowned French sculptor and painter. Together with Yves Klein, Arman and Cesar he was part of the Nice School movement. Sosno had a singular artistic approach: the concept of obliteration. His sculptures are disguised as empty or filled spaces, inviting the viewer to use their imagination. With an Estonian father and a Nice mother, he spent his childhood in Riga, Latvia, but went every winter to Nice, where he settled in 1945 and where in 1948 he met Matisse to whom he showed his first drawings. In 1956 he met Yves Klein and Arman and in '57 he joined the "Nouveau Réalisme" group, theorized by Pierre Restany. In 1958 he graduated in Philosophy at the Liceo Masséna in Nice and enrolled at the School of Oriental Languages, at the School of Political Sciences in Paris and followed courses at the Faculty of Law and the Institute of Filmography at La Sorbonne. Back in Nice in '61, he is one of the creators, together with Alex Lauro, Jean-Louis Paoli and Jean-Pierre Ozenda, of the magazine "Sud-Communications", where he announces the first theory of the "Ecole de Nice". He began a long friendship with Martial Raysse and created several programs on cinema for Telemontecarlo. In 1967-'69 he worked as an author on various TV programmes, was a photojournalist and war correspondent in Ireland, Bangladesh and Biafra, later publishing a book. He returns to painting with his first "obliterated" photographs. Between 1969 and '73 he settled in Montparnasse, where he participated in the beginnings of video art and sociological art, organized "performances" and created paintings on emulsified canvas. In 1974 he sold his studio in Paris, bought a sailing boat in Holland, crossed the Atlantic and, together with his partner Mascha, traveled for three years, exhibiting in Porto and Caracas. In 1980 he was a consultant for several stylists and created designs for fabrics. In 1985 he settled in Tribeca, New York and in 1991 he retired to Bellet, Nice. In 1993-'99 he traveled to Japan, Korea, Canada and Greece and in '99 he opened a studio in Munich. In 2005 he was invited by the city of Beijing and the President of the Chinese National Academy of Fine Arts to create a monumental sculpture in the center of the city and to create several artistic projects for the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2006 he was selected for the "Sculpture Symposium Olimpiche" to be exhibited in 12 museums in view of the Olympic Games.
