Alexandre Fasini (Saul Finesilber aka) - Kiev - 1892 - deported to Auschwitz - 1942
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Alexandre Fasini, who was born as Saul Finesilber, grew up in a family involved in grain trading. His mother died when he was very young. Two of her three sons became painters and the other one, who became a writer, also died prematurely.
Fasini spent his childhood in Odessa and attended the Fine Arts Academy where he was taught by Kiriak Kostandi, an impressionist painter of Greek origin. He became friends with the painter Philippe Hosiasson and the writer Isaac Babel and drew illustrations for Odessa newspapers, including for the Bomba and for the Iablstchko.
In 1922 he travelled to France on a soviet ship and established his residence at rue Daru in Montparnasse. Fasini's painting was situated on the edges of abstraction and surrealism and his work was marked by a desire for new experiences that positioned him uniquely within the School of Paris movement. He acquired a certain celebrity in the period 1920-1925 and the Galerie d'Art Vavin exhibited him for two years alongside Jean Lurçat, Pablo Picasso and Georges Papazoff. Fasini collected tribal art and also showed interest in photography and designing furniture.
During the Occupation, he did not stop painting. His close relations urged him to leave for the Free Zone, but his despair prevented him from doing so.On 16 July 1942 during the Velodrome d¹Hiver roundup, Fasini and his wife were arrested by the French gendarmes and the contents of his atelier were destroyed. They were interned in Drancy and deported on 22 July 1942 on convoy n°9.
They were assassinated in Auschwitz.
Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boyé, Paul Fogel
"Peintres Juifs à Paris 1905-1939 Ecole de Paris"
Editons Denoel 2000
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