Henri Maik was born in Paris on March 27, 1922 the son of the illustrator and engraver, Joseph Hecht. Maik designates himself as a Primitive painter, not a naïf painter. In many ways, the paintings of Henri Maik are paradoxical, at once familiar and strange, childlike and sophisticated, quiet and vocal with color. They are dreamscapes; their terrain lush with fields of simple flowers, exotic trees, rare birds and the beasts of the jungle. In a Maik painting, you enter a community of creatures, at rest and at play, dwelling in perfect harmony, who seem to look out at us, as if to suggest we might do as they are doing.

Multi-talented, Maik has designed tapestries woven in collaboration with Aubusson, created a collection of limit...