Marie Laurencin at the Musee Marmottan Monet

Soft pinks and greys, sweet faces and sad black eyes, this Spring in the Jardins de Ranelagh, the Musee Marmottan Monet is exhibiting a selection of paintings by Marie Laurencin.

The name Marie Laurencin rings a bell in the minds of both 20th century literature and art enthusiasts without necessarily evoking her own career as a painter. In the 1920s and 30s, Marie's paintings were acclaimed throughout Paris, but history books have often preferred to speak of her relationships with other artists: her long love affair with Guillaume Apollinaire, her interactions with American writers such as Gertrude Stein and her Sappho inspired trysts in various women's salons throughout Paris.

This season, Parisians have the opportunity to take a look at Laurencin's artistic career as the Musee Marmottan-Monet exhibits a large selection of her paintings, mainly on loan from the Marie Laurencin Museum of Tokyo (the only known museum dedicated to the artist's work). The exhibit allows us to discover her sensitive and original style, and we come to understand how this very original artist fits right in to the art of her time creating her own style while receiving influence from cubists Braque and Picasso, as well as the from the painter Le Douanier Rousseau.

My favorite work in the exhibit is a watercolor of a woman holding a basket of fruit on her head. One black, almond-shaped eye draws you in to a whirlpool of hand, basket, black braid and neck. Each element of the woman's body is at once separated and idealized and then combined by the composition's movement. It has a sensual and calculated beauty that is irresistible.The drawing is dated between 1908 and 1910, period when Marie Laurencin was in contact with Braque, Picasso, Apollinaire, and studying her own manner of cubic perspective, her signature style.

Marie Laurencin, Les deux espagnoles, 1915.
Copyright Adagp, 2012

During the first world war, Marie lived in exile in Madrid, having married a German baron just before the war broke out. Although the situation was difficult and lonely, she continued to paint and her paintings adopted elements of the surrounding culture, like the folding fan and lace mantilla in the painting, Les deux espagnoles. These Spanish women are transported into Laurencin's world of child-like reverie, with a note of melancholy. The choice of colors is her recurrent theme of grey tones and pastel pink with a bit of blue, green or red. The long ovals that form the women's faces and their long, thin, spidery fingers are specific to her work.

Marie Laurencin, La vie au chateau, 1925. Copyright Adagp, 2012.

La vie au chateau is a romp in a fairy tale park, with a series of portraits of women in different attitudes, painted in 1925. I believe it was exhibited in the 1925 Paris World's Fair that set French interior design on the international scene.

Back in Paris after the Armistice, Marie Laurencin received an increasing amount of recognition and entered the high point of her career. These years lead her to artistic maturity. By 1925 she was acclaimed throughout the city, and often commissioned to paint the portraits of important figures of Paris (mostly women): Coco Chanel and the baroness Gourgaud for example. She also dabbled in illustrations, and set designs (for Cocteau and the Ballets Russes).

The exhibit in the Musee Marmottan Monet is a rare opportunity to see such an important quantity of Marie Laurencin's paintings and sketches outside of Tokyo. The exhibit catalogue is also excellent. Daniel Marchesseau (ex-director of the Musee de la Vie Romantique) recounts the story of Marie Laurencin's art in French accompanied by a very good translation into English. It's a pleasure to read, both intellectually stimulating and easily accessible to someone who has no background knowledge in the subject. A great book to pick up on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

-CSL

Marie Laurencin 1883-1956
through June 30, 2013

Musee Marmottan Monet
2 rue Louis Boilly
75016 Paris

Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday: 10am - 6pm
Open Thursdays until 8pm

Museum website link