FASINI Alexander (real name Fainzil'berg Alexander (Crul) Arnoldovich (Arie), aliases: Sandro Fazini and Al Fas).

December 23, 1892 [5 January 1893] (Kiev) - 1942/1943 (Oswiecim, Poland)

painter, graphic artist, illustrator, photographer

born in the family Boguslavsky philistine, petty banker Arnold (Arie) Fainzil'berg. He was the eldest of four sons, brother of the writer Ilya Ilf (real name Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzil'berg). Childhood and youth spent in Odessa.

studied at the Art School of the Odessa Society of Fine Arts, then joined the group of Odessa Futurists. Collaborated in popular magazines of Odessa "Crocodile" (1911-1912) and "Theater and Cinema" (1916-1917), as well as in the newspaper "South Week" (1912-1913). Create drawings, screen savers, vignettes, cartoons and Photo sketch - it's easy, laconic, with a stroke, a more sophisticated, in the spirit of Aubrey Bersdli.

in 1915-1917 illustrated the famous poetry anthologies, initiating the Odessa southwestern school. Cover of "Silver Tube" (1915) refined and a little pretentious, but made out in the same year, artist of "Cars in the clouds" already has a print bright, avant-garde manner. Also, the artist illustrated anthologies "The seventh veil" (1916) and "Miracle in the Desert" (1917).

After the February Revolution Fasini, according to some sources, was in Petrograd and worked as a photographer, to which no documentary evidence, but later the exhibitions were shown landscapes Petrograd and Peterhof, dated 1917 year.

in 1917 in Odessa, joined the Society of Independent Artists, and participated in several of his exhibitions (1917-1919). Among his works are represented at the exhibition, held in November 1917 in the City Museum of Fine Arts, known for "Portrait of a provocateur (the light of a kerosene lamp)", "EK (dance inept candles) "," Kabak (light gas) "," Kabak (electricity) "landscapes" At the seashore "(Petrograd) and" Medium Fountain "," Port "," Gogol Street. All works of this period written in the cubist style.

In 1920-1921 he worked in the theater "Red Torch" (performed sketches of decorations to several avant-garde productions) and painted the interiors of the then-fashionable Odessa literary poetic cabaret, in particular the theater "InterMedia" and the cabaret "Canary" (1918), in the spirit of the Parisian night theaters.

in 1917-1918 Fasini drawings and caricatures were published in the Odessa satirical magazine "Le Figaro", "Bomba" and "apple". With the advent of the Bolsheviks Fasini, like other artists (Alexandra Exter, Theophilus Fraerman, Max Gelman), in 1919 participated in the design of the city to the May Day holiday. In 1920 worked as an artist in YugROSTA by B. Efimova, creating striking posters in the style of Matisse on the revolutionary themes.

In early 1922 he emigrated, first to Constantinople, then to Paris. In the first years of exile he lived in poverty, but continued his art - his works were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon Tuileries and the Salon of Independent. Working side by side with contemporary modernists, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso (participated in a joint exhibition in a Paris gallery Vaven-disintegrated in 1931), Fasini eventually became one of the most interesting artists of the Paris School. In the early 1930's his paintings, combining the features of abstract art and surrealism, a success.

in 1930 began to seriously pursue photography and in 1934 received a major order for advertising photography chemical factories, and then took part in this series in this exhibition in Brussels. In promotional photos showed himself as a modernist painter: his works are notable for unusual angles, contrasting light and shade, and the ability to find distinct geometric shapes in the shooting of the object (as in cubism). New photographic aesthetics Fasini close to finding a picturesque 1920's - 1930's so-called artists. "New objectivity": a game with the shape of objects (cube, ball), texture and material.

Photos Alexander Fasini regularly published in the Paris weekly Vu, signed by Al Fas and exhibited at the Paris International Exhibition (1937).

During the German occupation of Paris remained in the city. July 16, 1942 together with his wife was arrested and sent to concentration camp Drancy near Paris, July 22, the artist and his wife were deported to Auschwitz, Auschwitz. Perished in Auschwitz.

artist's works are kept in the collections of the Odessa Regional History Museum as well as in private collections in Russia, Israel, USA and France.