Serge Kantorowicz was born in Paris in 1942. He was brought up by his grandmother following the tragic deportation of his parents to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a trauma that followed the artist throughout his career.
He studied drawing and etching at the Lycée Saint-Étienne des arts graphiques, and from 1962, at the École des beaux-arts de Bruxelles as an interest-only student. Having developed his technical capacities, he found a position in the Maeght workshop and later in a workshop he shared with his cousin, Sam Szafran. This offered him the opportunity to work with and/or for Riopelle, Joan Mitchell, Henri Michaux, Miro, Calder, Giacometti or Vasarely.
The year 1973 marked a turning point for Kantorowicz, as it was when he decided to dedicate himself fully to his art. Already a master of engraving and etching, he explores these practices in all their forms: on wood, on leather, lithography and serigraphy. He is an outstanding draughtsman, having internalised the lessons and artistic advancements of Toulouse-Lautrec and Edward Munch, who balanced levity with internal anxiety. Pictorially, he channels an explicit power, reminiscent of the exacerbated sensibilities of Emil Nolde.
Figurative in its inception, Kantorowicz’s corpus has nonetheless ventured towards a neo-abstraction (inspired by the New York school), that rids itself of the burdens of resemblance to invoke a universal and sometimes encyclopaedic or expressive collection of memories, traumas and concerns.
As a perpetual reader and student, Kantorowicz has never ceased to cross boundaries in regards to expression. He operates a veritable ‘mise-en-abyme’ in his own painting, drawing on cultural masters of all genres: thematic exhibitions on Victor Hugo, use of characters inspired by Balzac, the oneiric worlds of Kubin, the absurdity of Kafka, the universes of Kantor and Shulz, among others.
Since 1977, Kantorowicz has exhibited his work in numerous galleries and museums around the world: the Nina Dausset Gallery (Paris), the European Parliament (Luxembourg), the Krikhaar Gallery (Amsterdam), the Georges Fall Gallery (Paris), the American Hebrew Congregation (New York), the Maison de Balzac (Paris), the Victor Hugo Museum (Paris), the Pascal Gabert Gallery (Paris) and La Non-Maison (Aix-en-Provence).
