Sasza Blondel

Aleksander (Sasza, Szaje, Andre) Blonder (Blondel) lived in years 1909-1949. He was born in Polish Czortków, died in Paris. In 1931-1932 he studied architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris; at the same time, until 1934 he was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Teodor Axentowicz, Władysław Jarocki and Fryderyk Pautsch. In Krakow, he joined the members of the Communist Union of Polish Youth and the Socialist Youth Union "Życie". He belonged to the group of creators of the artistic group "Alive".

The art of École de Paris and the expressive paintings of Stanisław Wyspiański had a great impact on Blonder's youthful output. In 1933 he co-founded the avant-garde Krakow Group with which he exhibited in 1933-1937. A number of abstract paintings come from this period, in which the texture diversity of geometrical fields used by Władysław Strzemiński was reflected. In the compositions, a dense network of interpenetrating, small forms fills the entire frame of the picture, reminiscent of Leon Chwistek's aesthetic theory of "zoneism".

In 1937, he was removed for communism with the ranks of the Polish Artists' Trade Union. In the same year he went on a scholarship to Paris. During World War II he participated in the French resistance. From 1942 he performed under the assumed name of André Blondel. In 1943 he took the position of professor in high school in Carcassonne.

In 1945 he settled in Paris, from where he often traveled south to France to Sète, where he painted luminous, bright landscapes. He was involved in illustration (illustrations to the poem Doëtte Angliviel "Le Cheval fou", Narbonne 1947). He also became a member of the Artistes Méridionaux group in Toulouse. Schematic still life representative of this period are also representative, giving an excuse for color experiments.

He exhibited at the Warsaw Institute of Art Propaganda (in 1936-1937), he had his first individual presentation at the Henryk Koterba Salon in Warsaw in 1937. Then he exhibited in Toulouse (1946), Paris (1949) and Perpignan (1949). Retrospective shows were held at the National Museum in Krakow (1970), Narbonne (1959), Sete (1959) and Carcassonne (1980).