LASCAUX ELIE (1888-1969) Virgin and Child

signed with initials ‘EL’ (lower right); dedicated in French ‘ A mes amis les guides/ E. LASCAUX, 41/ St Léonard de Noblat’ (on the reverse) oil on panel 27 x 26 cm 1941 Élie Lascaux, a French naive painter, settled in Montmartre at the end of the First World War. There he met Georges Limbour and Suzanne Valadon, who encouraged him to paint and introduced him to Max Jacob. Lascaux also met André Malraux, Raymond Queneau, but also André Beaudin and Juan Gris. In 1922, he met Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art dealer, who became his dealer and protector. During the Second World War, he took refuge in a villa near Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in the Limousin region, together with other Jewish people: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Michel Leiris, founder of the Collège de Sociologie, and the writer Raymond Queneau. For three years, the protagonists of this exodus read, wrote, drew and supported each other in the face of adversity: «three years of happiness, paradise in the shadow of the crematoria», said Kahnweiler. ‘Virgin and Child’ was painted during this period. Élie Lascaux was also a good friend of Pablo Picasso, who supported him in the 1960s for his boldness and perseverance. Picasso had a collection of drawings by Élie Lascaux.