§ Michel-Marie Poulain (1906-1991) Back Stage at La Vol de Nuit signed 'Michel Marie Poulain' (lower right) oil on canvas 76.5 x 61cm There was very little space for convention in Michel-Marie Poulain’s exceptionally vibrant life. Assigned male at birth, Poulain began living as a female from a young age, growing her hair long, wearing dresses and attending the local girls’ school. By adolescence, however, Poulain was sent to the boys’ school where she became the subject of cruel taunts. Far from dissuading the notoriously headstrong Poulain, who could easily out-muscle her tormentors, at this time she spent every Sunday dressing as a woman. Indeed, all sources suggest that Poulain’s family were accepting of her identity, providing her with a room to keep her perfume and dresses in and, at the age of 15, taking her to have her ears pierced for her maiden ball. After serving her mandatory service with the Dragoons, for which she cut off her long hair for the first time, Poulain became a travesti performer, working under the pseudonym Micky. It was during this time that Poulain met and married Solange, a fellow performer, who soon after delivered their daughter, Michele. In addition to her work at the music hall, Poulain was also beginning to experiment with paint and regularly exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Indépendants, in Paris. This period of artistic fecundity, however, was interrupted by World War II, in which Poulain served as a senior sergeant. After being captured and interred in a German stalag, Poulain escaped in 1941. Following the War, Poulain took the profound decision to opt for surgical interventions, allegedly self-castrating, despite previously eschewing offers in the 1930s from noted German physician and sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld. Welcomed by the bohemian Parisian society with open-arms and now living openly as a woman alongside her wife and child, Poulain continued to paint and perform and became a celebrated high-fashion model amongst the social elite. Later, she opened her own nightclub, the subject of the present lot, Le Vol de Nuit.