Alice Halicka

1895-1975

Alice Halicka was born December 20, 1895 in Krakow, Poland. She was born to a wealthy family and, after her mother’s death, was raised predominantly by her grandparents in Tyrol.

Following her formative education, she moved to Munich to study painting under Hungarian artist Simon Hollosy. She studied in the ateliers of Wyczolkowski and Pankiewcz as well. In May of 1912 Halicka moved to Paris where continued her studies at l’Académie Ranson under Sérusier and Maurice Denis. During this time she also met renowned Cubist painter and future husband Louis Marcoussis.

She and her husband befriended many artists and writers who were instrumental in the early movements of Parisian society and culture including Apollinaire, Braque, Gris, Dufy, André Salmon and Apollinaire who subsequently reviewed Halicka’s work in Soirées de Paris.

Halicka exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and began to work under the influence of Zborowski, who was a strong proponent of Cubism. He began to represent her work, though her husband strongly discouraged it. As a result Halicka destroyed much of her cubist work and, in 1919 focused on collage and fabric design. In 1920 she exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, Salon d’Automne, Salon des Tuileries and the Salon Surindépendants.

In Paris in 1922 Galerie-Bernheim Jeune presented exhibition of a group of significant modern artists including Henri Matisse, Alice Halicka, Auguste Herbin, Pierre Hode, Marie Laurencin, Henri Lebasque, Fernand Leger, and Moise Kisling.

Galerie Druet held a successful exhibition of her work in 1924 and she went on to exhibit at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris (1930, 1931), Leicester Gallery in London (1934) and M. Harriman Gallery and Galerie Levy in New York (1936, 1937).

Other exhibitions include Art Polanais, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Musée du Grand Palais, 1921; the International Exhibition of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum,1927; Galerie Bonjean, Paris,1931; From Impressionism to Abstracton : 13 Women Painters, AWA Club House, New York, 1934; Les Dames de Montmarte, Musée de Montmarte, Paris, 1966; Les Cubistes, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1973; The Circle of Montparnasse Jewish Artistes in Paris 1905-1945, Jewish Museum, Mew York, 1985. Halicka also exhibited frequently with the esteemed Bernheim and Berthe Weill galleries.

In 1925 Halicka illustrated Enfantines by Valery Larbaud and Les Enfants du Ghetto by Israel Zangwill. She also created set designs for several ballets while in the United States, one of which was performed at the Metropolitan Opera New York and Covent Garden, London.

Halicka spent the duration of World War II in France and in 1946 she published a book of memoirs, Hier. She continued to exhibit her work in France and travel abroad in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Halicka’s works are held by the Barnes Foundation and in the collection of M. Kapferer, Chevalier, Reinhardt, Bernard, Bloch and Lederlin. Her biography has been written in Peintures Juifs à Paris by Nadine Nieszawer, Marie Boyé and Paul Fogel, L’École de Paris published by the Paris Museum of Modern Art and Modern French Painters by Maurice Raynal. In 2002 the Musée du Montparnasse held an exhibition, Elles de Montparnasse, in which Halicka’s work and biography were included.

Alice Halicka died in Paris in 1975.