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Jean VardaJean Varda (1893-1971) was born in Smyrna, Greece. After studying in Alexandria, he moved to Paris in 1913, where he shared a studio with Braque and met many of the avant-garde including Matisse, Picasso and Miro. Varda moved to London where he was a dancer before he returned to Paris in 1916 to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts. After sharing a studio with Roland Penrose in Cassis in the 1920s, Varda emigrated to the USA in 1939, living first in New York before moving to California, where he lived on a houseboat in Sausalito and became a close friend of Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Varda was known as a portrait painter and taught at various colleges including the Pratt Institute in New York. Influenced by Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, he established a reputation for his textile and advertising designs, mosaics and his own individual mode of collage.
England & Co is interested in hearing about more works by Jean Varda.
