Jean Varda

Who was Jean Varda?

Jean Varda was an artist. He was of mixed Greek and French descent. As a child he was known as a prodigy, and received commissions to paint portraits of prominent Athenians.

At 19, Varda moved to Paris where he met Picasso and Braque and lost all interest in the academic style of painting he had been pursuing until that time. He moved to London during World War I, became a ballet dancer, and began to make friendships with members of the avant garde in London.

By 1922 Varda was back in Paris and had returned to painting. Beginning in 1923 Varda spent most of his summers in Cassis, in the south of France, where he welcomed a number of well-known people to his homes including, in addition to Braque and Miró, Derain, Max Ernst, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, Gerald Brenan, Wolfgang Paalen and others. By the mid-1920s he was spending most of his winters in London.

During the 1930s Varda developed a type of mosaic that involved the use of pieces of broken mirrors. He would scratch the backs of the pieces of mirror, then paint bright colors in the scratches so the paint showed through to the front of the mirror. He would then glue the pieces of mirror to a board, which he had prepared with a gritty gesso mixture.