Olivier was a true Renaissance man. An accomplished pilot, a talented artist.
I first met him when we were introduced by his late father, Serge Dassault.
Dassault was the son of Madeline Dassault (née Minckes) and Marcel Bloch Dassault, from whom he inherited the Dassault Group. Both his parents were Jewish.
His father, Olivier’s grandfather, Marcel Bloch founded Dassault Aviation in 1929. Marcel Bloch was educated at Lycée Condorcet in Paris. After studies in electrical engineering, he graduated from the Breguet School and Supaéro. At the latter, Bloch was classmates with a Russian student named Mikhail Gurevich, who would later be instrumental in the creation of the MiG aircraft series.