Assia Granatouroff

Assia Granatouroff—known simply as Assia—entered the world on October 6, 1911, in Bogopol, now Pervomaïsk, Ukraine, and left it on May 17, 1982, in Paris’s 15th arrondissement. During the interwar years, she became the quintessential nude model for Paris’s most celebrated photographers, painters, and sculptors, embodying the era’s artistic spirit.

Her early years were marked by upheaval. When Assia was three, her father, Échiel, a democrat opposed to Nicholas II’s regime, fled to America, leaving his wife Méchama and their children—Assia and her brother Hersch—behind. The family endured World War I and the Russian Revolution without him. Finally, in late 1920, he summoned them to Paris, a journey that took nearly a year. Assia arrived at age eleven.

At sixteen, she left home for Montparnasse, settling near rue de Rennes, the vibrant heart of artistic life. Supporting herself through floral textile designs and sewing, she soon began modeling. From 1930, she posed for photographers including Roger Schall, Dora Maar, Germaine Krull, Ergy Landau, and Emmanuel Sougez. Sculptors Charles Despiau, Aristide Maillol, Paul Belmondo, and Chana Orloff captured her form, as did painters André Derain, Moïse Kisling, Kees van Dongen, and Suzanne Valadon. She also pursued theater under Charles Dullin and appeared in films like Victor Tourjansky’s *Les Yeux Noirs* (1935).

In 1940, Assia fled to the free zone. Arrested in Cassis in 1943 by the Gestapo with actor Robert Lynen—both Jewish and suspected of Alliance network ties—she secured her