Henri Goetz (1909-1989)

Henri Bernard Goetz (1909 – 1989) was a French American Surrealist painter and engraver. During the Second World War, he worked, along with this wife, for the French Resistance, producing posters and forging documents. He met his wife, Christine Boumeester, whilst studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, in Paris.

He credited Christine with much of his early shift from realism to his more modern, surrealist painting style. With this transformation came a new circle of friends, through which he metthe likes of Fernand Léger and Wassily Kandinsky.

Both Goetz and Boumeesterwere forced to flee Paris when their resistance activities were discovered by occupying German forces, but returned to Paris at the end of the war.

In the 1960’s, Goetz invented the carborundum printmaking process. La gravure au carborundum, a treatise on carborundum printing, was published by the Maeght Gallery. It was prefaced by Joan Miró, who was perhaps the most noted artist to employ the technique.

His work which includes painting and notably, etchings, is represented in more than 100 galleries worldwide. See more details on Goetz’s Wikipedia page.