Atlan, Jean-Michel

The French painter and poet Jean-Michel Atlan was born in the Algerian city of Constantine in 1913. Atlan studied philosophy during the thirties in Paris. He was engaged in politically active student rings.
After the German invasion of France, Jean-Michel Atlan had to quit his job. He had to go into hiding in a psychiatric ward, where he wrote poems and started to paint Jean-Michel Atlan initially painted in a powerful expressive style. Later he painted figures from mythology in a vegetative world. His work was on display in various exhibitions in Paris. Atlan met Asger Jorn in 1946 and later came into contact with other CoBrA-artists. His workshop became a meeting place for CoBrA in Paris.
The works of Jean-Michel Atlan were displayed on exhibitions of the CoBrA-group in Amsterdam in 1919 and Luik in 1951. During the fifties, his work was exhibited in various museums in France and other countries. Jean-Michel Atlan died in 1960 in Paris. In 1963 and 1980 there was a large exhibition of Atlan on display in the museum of modern art in Paris.