Salzman, Alexander Gustav von

Born in a family of Caucasian Germans , the father of the future artist, Albert Theodor von Salzmann (1833-1897), worked as an architect. Mother came from St. Petersburg, also from the family of a civil engineer. The forefathers of his Lutheran religion moved at the beginning of the 19th century from southern Germany to the territory of the Russian Empire. The boy already in childhood showed abilities in the field of fine art and music. In 1092, Alexander came to Moscow to study painting. Then he continued his education in Germany, in Munich, in the studio-studio of Professor Franz von Stuck (since November 1898). At the same time, he began to collaborate with the cult Munich magazine Jugend , which German symbolists and expressionists published at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1900, A. Zaltsman opened - together with Adelbert Niemeyer and Karl Stratman - an art workshop. In 1901, he took part in the Phalanx art exhibition for the first time. The artist meets other Russian artists living in Munich - Vasily Kandinsky , and through him with Maria Verevkina and Alexei Yavlensky , close to the Blue Horseman art group. At the end of August 1903, Zaltsman left with Maria Verevkina to Normandy, while A. Yavlensky remained in Munich. In Normandy for some time they live in the resort town of Barneville-Carter. Here, Alexander writes a series of paintings that showed him as a mature, talented master. Returning to Munich via Paris, the couple visits the Louvre , and here he studies the paintings of Whistler , Renoir , Edouard Manet , Claude Monet , Ignacio Zuloaga . In 1906-1907, Zaltsman worked, together with the artist Fritz Erler, on the frescoes “Four Seasons” in the Wiesbaden balneological house (in the Rakovin Hall). Since 1906, he also collaborates as a designer and fabric artist at the German Hellerau Workshops. Since 1910, the artist lives and works in Dresden, with the composer and creator of “rhythmic education” Emil-Jacques Delcroze and theater artist and architect Adolf Appia . In the theatrical performances of the "Hellerau Theater", Salzman was in charge of the artistic lighting of the stage, which was especially difficult for pantomime productions.

In 1912, Zaltsman met the pianist and composer Jeanne-Marie Almand , who had graduated from the Geneva Conservatoire , with whom she married in Geneva that same year. In 1917, the Salzman family returned to Tiflis and opened a dance school here. At this time, Salzman was engaged in a lot of theatrical painting and design, developing sketches of costumes for performances and stage decorations. In 1919, the Salzmanns became acquainted with the Russian composer Thomas Hartmann , and through him - with the esotericist, choreographer and composer Georgy Gurdjieff .

In 1921, the Salzmanns came to Paris, and the artist works at the Champs Elysees Theater , where he uses the stage lighting system he developed in the Dresden Theater Hallerau. During this creative period, he met with the Paris surrealists Joseph Shima and Rene Dumal , engaged in the sale of antiques. Alexander Zaltsman was one of the first European artists to discover " Japaneseism " - earlier than other German painters of the "Munich School". The works of P. Zaltsman, even his Orthodox iconography since 1902 - as the exhibition of European followers of Japaneseism showed as a direction (in Murnau in 2011) - are styled like Japanese color graphics.

In 1934, the artist became ill with tuberculosis and died at the Belvedere sanatorium in Leesen, Switzerland.

• Isolda Kurdadse, Tamaz Tschkonia, Alexander Salzmann, Deutsche in Georgien, An den Anfängen der georgischen Operszenographie, Kaukasische Post Nr. 36, Juli / August 2002, o. S.
• Brigitte Salmen (Hrsg.), “... diese zärtlichen, geistvollen Phantasien ...”, Die Maler des “Blauen Reiter” und Japan, Ausst. Kat. Schloßmuseum Murnau 2011, ISBN 978-3-932276-39-2
• Basarab Nicolescu, "Alexandre de Salzmann - un continent inexploré", in René Daumal et l'enseignement de Gurdjieff , Le Bois d'Orion, France, 2015.

• Table biography
• Alexander von Salzman: Caucasian talent
• Russian horse teams of Alexander Zaltsman on artnet

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  Heartache (1905)

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  "Wedding Code, §300" (1905)

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  “Waiting” (1909)