Jean Hélion was born in 1904. He started out as a
chemistry major; abandoned that to become an architectural apprentice; abandoned
that to become a painter. After attending classed at the Académie Adler, he soon
became well-known as an abstract painter. He moved to NYC in 1936 and abandoned
abstractness. Returning to France in 1940 to join the French armed forces, he
was quickly captured. He escaped in early 1942 after a year and a half of
imprisonment and made his way back to NYC where he wrote an account of his
ordeal in an instant best-seller, They Shall Not Have Me. He also painted
- in the cartoonish style represented by his Imagery of Chess
submissions.
One of Hélion's several wives was Pegeen Guggenheim, the daughter of Peggy
Guggenheim (who killed herself in 1967). He died in 1987.
