Boris Taslitzky, sometimes Boris Tazlitsky (September 30, 1911 – December 9, 2005), was a French painter with left-wing sympathies, best known for his figurative depictions of some difficult moments in the history of the twentieth century. His work is considered as representative of Socialist realism in art in France.
With the advent of World War II, he was drafted into the army in August 1939. He was captured in June 1940, but managed to escape in August and became involved in the resistance movement with the National Front active during the Occupation of France by Germany.
Arrested by the special brigades[7] in November 1941, sentenced to two years in prison, he was transferred to the prisons of Riom and Mauzac, then to the Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe camp where he painted frescoes on the walls of some of the cells and in the chapel.[8] On the last day of July 1944, he was deported in one of the last transports to Buchenwald where he managed to do some pencil drawings that bear witness to the life in the camps. His sketches were made on stolen German paper. He created portraits of fellow prisoners.[9]
In 1945, after his release, to commemorate the death at Auschwitz of the wife of Laurent Casanova, a French Communist party official, he painted The Death of Danielle Casanova, in the form of a secular Pietà rendering.[10]
At the 1951 Salon d'Automne, Riposte, a depiction of striking dockers in Marseille refusing to load weapons destined for the war in Indochina, was removed by the police.[11] In 1952 he traveled to Algeria, then still a French colony, to make paintings exposing the poor conditions under which people lived and to denounce colonialism.
Already decorated with the 1939–1945 war cross and the military medal, he was awarded Knighthood in the Legion of Honor in 1997 with the title of "Resistance and Deportation".[12]
His work, often labeled as representative of Socialist realism in art, is a free interpretation of the genre.[13] His life was marked by the great upheavals of the twentieth century and his artistic and political commitments denote his awareness and sense of responsibility as an artist.[14]