Oscar Miestchaninoff

Oscar Miestchaninoff (born 1886 in Vitebsk, died in 1956 in Los Angeles) is a French painter and sculptor of Belarussian origin.

From his origins he was Lithuanian, he took first paintings at the school of painting and drawing by Jehuda Pen and then went to Odessa, where he studied for a year at the School of Fine Arts from 1905. In 1906 he left Russia and went to Paris, where a year later he started studying at the École des Arts Décoratifs and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. After graduating in 1911 he also took lessons at Joseph Bernards. In 1908 he became a member of the Salon de la Nationale, and in 1912 he exhibited his work in the Autumn Salon for the first time. In 1919 he went to southern Asia, met sculptures created by the Khmer, stayed in Burma, Cambodia and Siam. In 1921 he exhibited at the Salon des Indilites and in the Salon des Tuileries, in 1927 he traveled to India. His works were exhibited in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, St. Petersburg, Moscow and the United States. In 1937 he won a gold medal for the sculpture of a stylized naked woman, in 1939 he had an individual exhibition at the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. He collected the works of Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Amedeo Modigliani and Chaim Soutine, who managed to save the world from World War II by transferring them to the United States in 1944. Subsequent solo exhibitions took place in 1944 at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York and in 1955 at the Musee Conti Wax Museum in New Orleans.

The most popular motif of Oscar Miestchaninoff's work was bust and torso made in marble, the sculpture of a man in a cylinder is considered his most famous work and is presented at the Pompidou Center. Bibliography

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