A few weeks ago, I wrote about a lithograph of a quartet that bore the illegible signature of the artist. I’m usually good at deciphering handwriting, but this one stumped me. So I asked for your help, and you were obliging.
“The lithograph artist is Georges Dayez,” a reader wrote. “It’s called Orchestre de Chambre. … I’m pretty sure he did one of a jazz combo, too.”
Fantastic. Now I had a name to go with this lovely original print, so I Googled and found it. I also saw other works by Dayez – most were oil on canvas – and I instantly recognized his work. All had the Cubist look and feel of a Picasso.
I had assumed the artist was local, because I pick up a lot of works by Philadelphia-area artists at auction and many of their pieces are part of my collection. I was indeed happy to hear that I’d snagged a print by a named artist with an international pedigree.
Georges Dayez was born in 1907 in Paris, the son of a man who owned a small art print shop. As a young man, Dayez got into painting and drawing, and learned the printing techniques of intaglio and lithography while working in his father’s shop. He attended the art academies in Paris, and the painter Lucien Simon allowed him to audit his classes in the mornings at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Dayez served in the French military for two years in the late 1920s, and got special permission to attend art classes and take a leave to paint. After the service, he set up his first studio in Paris in 1929, and painted, exhibited and studied alongside painter Edouard Pignon. At one point, Pignon worked in Dayez’s father’s shop as a lithographer.
Both were represented in a group exhibition by Cubists at the Salon des Independants. They were also among a group of artists and writers whose works spoke of the working class and against fascism. Dayez fought with the French military during World War II.
After the war he exhibited among such French painters as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger and Henri Matisse at the Salon d’Automne.
Dayez had his first solo exhibit in Paris in 1947. During the 1940s and 1950s, his works were shown in the Paris salons as well as in exhibits in New York, Amsterdam and Madrid. He was also an art teacher in Paris. His works are in museums in Paris, the United States, Spain, Greece, Japan and other countries. Dayez died in 1991 in Paris.
The lithograph from the auction “Orchestre de Chambre” was number 198 in a series of 220. It was made circa 1960. I also found one other classical painting, “Trio,” and several jazz: “Quintette,” 1959; “Quartet,” 1956, and “Jazz Aout,” 1957.
