Marcel Słodki

Marceli was born to a secular, liberal Jewish family in Łódź (then in the Prussian partition of Poland). His father was a bank director. From 1910 to 1913 Marceli studied in Munich at the Academy of Fine Arts and then spent the next year travelling through Europe.[1][2]

Poster for the opening of the Cabaret Voltaire on 1916-02-05, lithograph by Marcel Slodki.

He moved to Switzerland in 1914, where for a time he worked with architects, designing town plans. He became involved early on with the Dada art movement. He designed the poster for the opening of Dadaist performance at Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich (1916). His work were presented there from 1917, and he held his first individual exhibition, also in Zürich, in 1919. From 1921 to 1924 he lived in Germany, where he was involved with the cabaret Di wilde Bühne (designing theater sets) and Berlin's magazine Aktion. Later he moved to France. His works were exhibited, among others, at the Salon des indépendants (Paris, 1928), an exhibition in Bruges (1933), an exhibition in Warsaw (1934, possibly related to Żydowskie Towarzystwo Krzewienia Sztuk Pięknych), Salon d'Automne (Paris, 1937), and an exhibition in London (1938).[1][2]

He married a painter, Macha Boulanger.[2]

Following the German invasion and occupation of France, he lived in Brive-la-Gaillarde, first continuing with his public work, even exhibiting it, but eventually going into hiding. He was arrested in 1943 in Paris, but was released or escaped (accounts vary). He hid in woodlands near Paris, and then moved to Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Chambéry (then under Italian occupation). After the Germans took control of Chambéry, he was arrested again, on 14 December 1943, and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he died within a year.[1][2]

His art style is described as post-impressionist. He has been associated with the Dada art movement, as well as the Polish Kapists art movement. His early works were also influenced by Cubism, but most did not survive, destroyed by the artist himself (an act he later regretted). Most of his paintings are landscapes and still lifes, although he created some portraits as well as several paintings of fisherman and circus artists at work.[1]

• J. Sandel: Słodki, Marceli. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts. Band 4: Q–U. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1958, S. 299.
• M. Wallis-Walfisz: Słodki, Marceli. In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Begründet von Ulrich Thieme und Felix Becker. Band 31: Siemering–Stephens. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1937, S. 140.

• Unauthorized Salvadoran citizenship certificate issued to Marcel Slodki (b. November 8, 1892 in Lodz) by George Mandel-Mantello, First Secretary of the Salvadoran Consulate in Switzerland and sent to him in the Drancy transit camp