Here is the biography of Assia Granatouroff:
Assia Granatouroff, born Assia Granatouroff, was a Ukrainian-born French model, actress, and artist. Born on October 6, 1911, in Bogopol, Ukraine, which is now Pervomaïsk, Ukraine, she was raised in Paris after her father, a democrat who refused to support the regime of Nicolas II, left for the United States and abandoned his family when Assia was just three years old.
Assia's family experienced the horrors of the Russian Revolution and World War I without her father, who did not return to Russia even after the monarchy was abolished. In 1920, her father called his wife and children to join him in Paris, where he lived with his sister. The trip took almost a year, and Assia was almost eleven years old when she arrived in Paris.
She was a model for many photographers, including Roger Schall, Dora Maar, Germaine Krull, Ergy Landau, and Emmanuel Sougez, and posed for sculptors such as Charles Despiau, Aristide Maillol, Paul Belmondo, and Chana Orloff, as well as painters like André Derain, Moïse Kisling, Kees van Dongen, Marcel Gromaire, Suzanne Valadon, Henry de Waroquier, and Edmond Ceria.
Assia also began a theatrical career at the Vieux-Colombier and continued under the direction of Charles Dullin. She acted in several films, including "Les Yeux Noirs" by Victor Tourjansky, in 1935.
In 1940, Assia took refuge in the free zone and was arrested in 1943 by the Gestapo in Cassis with actor Robert Lynen because she was Jewish and suspected of belonging to the Alliance network. She managed to be released and took refuge in Switzerland, where she francized her name to Granatour. Her husband was also arrested around 1941 and returned from captivity in 1944. The couple divorced in 1949.
From 1950, Assia approached esotericism and her artistic production turned towards a very personal symbolism. She created compositions of flowers and tapestries inspired by tarot cards, which she exhibited between 1972 and 1978. She posed for female photographers Dora Maar, Ergy Landau, and Germaine Krull, and was featured in an advertisement for Gibbs rice powder, where she was referred to as the "Steel Valkyrie".
Assia Granatouroff passed away on May 17, 1982, due to a bone cancer that had spread quickly.
