MICHEL DUCAROY
Michel Ducaroy was born in 1925 and was largely inspired by the 1930s. Internationally this period can be best characterised by the duelling of the world’s dominant political philosophies - Marxist Socialism, Capitalist Democracy, and the Totalitarianism of both Communism and Fascism. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s government needed urgent funds to implement the rapid industrialisation demanded by the first Five Year Plan. It initiated a secret strategy to sell off treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), including a preliminary list of two hundred and fifty priceless paintings by the Old Masters, many of which found their way to the collection of Andrew Mellon via the New York based art dealing company, Knoedler.