Rare Work By Nicolai Michoutouchkine . Futuna 1961 . Pacific . Nouméa . Vanuatu . Oceania .

the painter Nicolaï Michoutushkine was born in Belfort in 1929 into a family of Russian refugees who had fled the Bolshevik revolution; his father was an officer of the Tsar . he will remain very grateful to France for having welcomed his family . during his artistic studies the curator of the city museum Mr. Delarbre and the painter Bourland, friend of Matisse, noticed his gifts for drawing .. after a long journey through the Middle East, India, Nepal and Burma.. he finally arrives in Nouméa . he moved there in 1957. he visited Vanuatu in the company of Aloï Pilioko in 1961 and responded positively to the proposal of a resident patron proposing that he set up his home port on the Esnar property, near Port Vila. the two partners will gradually store traditional objects brought back from their journeys throughout Oceania and thus constitute, under the name of “Michoutouchkine & Pilioko Foundation for the preservation of artistic values”, a collection rich in several hundred pieces . from 1974 and for fifteen years, he undertook a series of exhibitions in major cities around the world such as Paris, Moscow, Jakarta or Sydney .. in 2007, on the occasion of an exhibition, the Tjibaou Cultural Center celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Michoutushkine's arrival in the Pacific ..

Futuna was the catalyst for the symbiosis of the two artists: Nicolaï Michoutushkine and Aloi Pilioko ..