Elie Grekoff , Les Fleurs du Mal, Parijs, 1946, Editions de Cluny, 241/550.
Illustr.: -16 full page engravings.
-15 small engravings at the beginning of a poem
Elie Grekoff (1914-1985) was born into a family of military personnel. Only his father, influenced by Tolstoy's ideas, managed to avoid military service and became a railway engineer. After a nomadic existence across Russia, the Grekoff family sought refuge in Turkey. He was fourteen years old when, in 1928, they decided to settle in France. Even as a child, Grekoff dreamed of being a painter, and a friend, himself a painter, recommended him to an architect who agreed to take him on in his firm. But architecture was not Grekoff's calling. He soon abandoned it to enroll at the Fernand Léger Academy. Léger quickly took an interest in him and entrusted him with some projects. Then came the war. Mobilized and taken prisoner in 1940, Grekoff remained in captivity for six months. It was during this captivity that he met the owner of Éditions de Cluny, who, immediately after their release, commissioned him to illustrate several luxury books. Despite the considerable effort required by illustration, Grekoff continued to paint. In 1962, the artist left Paris and worked in the peaceful countryside of Anjou. He died on July 16, 1985, in Paris. (Wikipedia)
