Gen Paul

French (1895-1975)

Gen Paul was born Eugene Paul in Montmartre in 1895. By the time he was 14 his teachers recognized his gift for drawing. He served in the French army during World War I but was badly injured, losing a leg. During his recovery he turned to painting. By 1917 he was successful enough that he began signing his work “Gen Paul”. In the early 1920s he worked as a printmaker for Eugene DeLatre, where he produced 40 aquatints of scenes of Montmartre. Paul knew Gris, Utrillo, Vlaminck and Jean Dufy. He exhibited regularly at the Salon d’Automne and Salon des Independants. By the mid-1920s he was exhibiting at the Savill Gallery in London and Breekpot Galerie in Antwerp. In 1924 he traveled to the United States to explore the art market and the jazz scene. A few years later he exhibited with Picasso and Soutine.

Because of the dynamism and motion inherent in Gen Paul’s painting, some consider him to be the first action painter, a precursor to the abstract expressionists of the 1950s.

Gen Paul’s work is in the Musee D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, and museums in Bern and Granville.