Louis Marcoussis is the pseudonym of Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus, a Polish painter and printmaker established in France, born in Warsaw on November 14, 1878 and died in Cusset, near Vichy, on October 22, 1941.
Arrived in Paris in 1903, he exhibited for the first time at the Autumn Salon of 1905. He made his living drawing cartoons for satirical newspapers. Frequenting the cafes and the Bateau-Lavoir, he became acquainted with other artists, such as Braque, Degas, Picasso, Apollinaire and the Puteaux group. The latter will make him Frenchify his name with that of the town of Marcoussis, close to the capital.
At the beginning, his painting was impressionist, but around 1910 he joined the Cubist movement.
In 1913, he married his compatriot Alice Halicka, also a painter. During the war years, mobilized, he had to return to Poland. In 1925, he exhibited for the first time alone. From that date the trips and exhibitions followed one another: Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, the United States.
During the 1930s he devoted himself especially to engraving. In 1940, before the arrival of the German troops, he took refuge in Cusset where he died a year later.
Apart from his many paintings, his work as an engraver of illustrations for the works of Apollinaire (Alcools), Gérard de Nerval, Tzara and others stands out
