Raya Sorkine was born in Paris, in the 20th arrondissement, on June 22, 1936, and it was out of a mutual adoration between mother and son that painter Raya Sorkine chose this pseudonym. Alain-François (his real first name) will sign his canvases under his mother's first and last names, and the Jewish culture of Central Europe, in which his childhood was steeped in the stories and customs of his elders, resonates throughout his paintings, illuminated as they are by traditional Jewish festivals and music.But it's not enough to restrict his work to this essential, though by no means exhaustive, influence. Raya Sorkine's canvases blend all the cultural differences he carried with him from childhood and adolescence. France, the multiple suns and magnificence of his travels, despite the horror of wartime and the tragic turning points in the history of his century, enabled him, at a very young age, to approach, internalize and then mark with his original seal the beginning of a "magnificent" work, the crossroads of a thousand encounters.A tireless traveler, he crossed Europe, stopping only to draw inspiration from skies tinged with the half-moons of Sweden or the warm glow of the Provençal sun, and continued to add to his palette his wealth of knowledge of the world. But he was a man, and it was from his four wives and seven daughters that he drew even more inspiration: they were all his muses. These are the women who marry, carrying the eternal bouquet of flowers that his mother holds in her arms on the photo that is omnipresent in his artist's eyes and his eternal child's heart.