Born in Warsaw in 1909, Georges Spiro (1909-1994) settled in France before the Second World War and became a French citizen after serving in the French army. A self-taught painter based in Nice, he developed a Surrealist language of fantastical landscapes, imaginary architecture and animals, rendered with meticulous realism. After a first exhibition in London in 1946, he received a young painters' prize in Paris in 1948 and went on to exhibit widely in Europe and North America. He died in Nice in 1994.