Jean-Michel Atlan was a French painter of Algerian-Jewish descent known his participation in the CoBrA group. Atlan conveyed a hallucinatory world of mutating forms on the verge of abstraction and representation. Born on January 23, 1913 in Constantine, French Algeria, he moved to Paris in 1930, where he earned a degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne. He subsequently became a teacher but, because he was Jewish, lost his teaching license during World War II and began painting to occupy himself. In 1942, he was arrested for his involvement with the French Resistance, but evaded the death camps by affecting insanity. While confined to the Saint-Anne asylum, Atlan wrote a volume of poetry entitled Sang profond (1944), which he published upon his release. After the war, the artist became friends with Asger Jorn and other avant-garde writers and painters who shared his interest in primitive art forms and expression. Atlan died on February 12, 1960 in Paris, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.