Russian born Elena and Michel Gran are the most eminent practitioners of trompe l’oeil painting at work today, celebrated for their astounding technical skills, and the sleight of hand with which they marshal their deliberately deceptive compositions. The Grans present a unique feature in contemporary trompe-l’oeil painting in that they work together on the same canvas in such a symbiotic way that it is impossible to tell where the work of one ends, and the other begins. Throughout their combined illustrious careers they have become recognised for their distinctive interpretation of trompe l’oeil, rich in metaphor, vision and imagination combined with a profound understanding of historical reference. Their works belong to numerous important public and private collections worldwide perhaps most notably the Louvre Museum which purchased a work entitled ‘Red and Black’ for the French National Museum of Cards.

They have themselves become collectors but of nostalgia - furniture, old books, scientific and geometric instruments and objets d’art, in particular of unusual shapes, which because of their intrinsic historical character become the basis of their paintings. Progressively, the representation of the inanimate and depiction of the object, is a dominant theme in their work, creating something more than their ability to convey the objects as substantially present through redefining the relationship between verbal and visual art through the titles appended to the works. These titles provide the clues to the way the works undermine habitual responses regarding words and objects and remind us of the way we are inclined to confuse signs for the things signified. In “reality,” nothing is as it “really” seems.

‘What these paintings tell us is that trompe l’oeil has now entered a wholly different sphere. It is no longer concerned with a simplistic desire to astonish, or to show off bravura technical skills, in the manner of a gifted violinist throwing off a difficult Paganini Caprice. The Grans use it for its metaphysical dimension. Seemingly precise, the images, on closer examination, are full of ambiguities. They are ambiguous, not about the appearance of things, but about the crisscrossing meanings that can be elicited from certain combinations of objects. In a certain sense, this characteristic strikes me as profoundly Russian, despite the Grans long residence outside that country. The Russian art and literature of the 19th century, one of the most concentrated creative outbursts to have occurred in any country, took place in a context of stringent tsarist censorship, but also of an intense concern for social issues and the whole political situation of that time. Russian painters and writers learned to symbolize rather than say. The Grans are the inheritors of that tradition. The more you look, the more there is to discover.’

Elena was born in St. Petersburg in 1942 into a family of painters and architects and trained at the Academy of Theatre, Music and Cinematography St Petersburg within the Faculty of Arts. Michel was born in Moscow 1941, the son of a theatrical artist, and trained at the same Academy as Elena where they met and in 1964 subsequently married.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2007	Albemarle Gallery London
2005	Albemarle Gallery London
2004	Hollis Taggart Gallery, Chicago, USA
	Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York, USA
2002	Albemarle Gallery, London, England
	Residensea Gallery, Cannes, France St. Petersburg, Russia
2000	Albemarle Gallery, London, England
1999	Albemarle Gallery, London, England
1998	Albemarle Gallery, London, England
1996/97	Galerie Michelle Boulet, Paris, France
1996	Galerie of Tourettes-sur-Loup, Nice, France
1993/95	Galerie Michelle Boulet, Paris, France
1991	Galerie of Tourettes-sur-Loup, Nice, France
1990	Guest of Honour at the Music and Painting Festival, Florence, Italy
1989	Germering Community Arts Centre, Germany Kunstgalerie of Herrsching, Germany
1988	Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, France
1987	Galerie Diessen am Ammersee, Munich, Germany Galerie Cauvin, Billom, France
Selected Group Exhibitions
2011	Summer Collective, Albemarle Gallery, London, England Spring Collective, Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2010	Charity Event, Albemarle Gallery, London, England Russian Art Fair, Park Lane Hotel, London
2009	Spring Collective, Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2008	Winter Show, Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2006	“10th Anniversary Show”, Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2005	“What is Realism?”, Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2003	"Summer Show 2003", Albemarle Gallery, London, England
2001	"Still Life and Trompe l’Oeil Show," Albemarle Gallery, London, England
1997	"Still Life Show", Albemarle Gallery, London, England
1996	"Trompe l'Oeil", Exhibition at the Manege de Reims, France Salon of Angers, France
1995	"Trompe-l'Oeil and Reality" Exhibition, Paris, France Prix International d'Art Contemporain of Monte-Carlo at Monaco Museum
1994	Salon of Montmorency - Awarded the City of Montmorency 1st Grand Prix, France
1993	"Contemporary Trompe l'Oeil", Galerie Michelle Boulet, Paris, France "Trompe l'Oeil" Exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris, France Guest of Honour at the Saran Castle, Loiret, France
1992	Salon of Montmorency, France 11th Salon of Angers, France "Beyond Reality...", Galerie Saint-Hubert, Lyon, France "Trompe-l'Oeil and Anamorphosis" Exhibition at the Manege de Reims, France "France-Japon" Tour of Japan
1991	Arras Museum, France "Trompe-l'Oeil" Exhibition Galerie Michelle Boulot, Paris, France