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

The New Frontier at the Louvre : Genre Scenes in Nineteenth Century American Art

George Caleb Bingham, The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1877-1878,
Terra Foundation for American Art
copyright Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago

On January 19 in the Gainsbourough room, the Louvre inaugurated New Frontier II the second part of a series of four exhibits of paintings from the United States before and around the Civil War. This year's installment shows a handful of genre scenes - scenes showing activities from daily life - popularized during the 1830s and 40s at a time when the American identity became increasingly diverse as the country spread out farther west.

Three paintings stand out from this exposition dossier and show three recurrent themes in American genre painting: social commentary for The Old Kentucky Home or Life in the South, by Eastman Johnson, 1870, (High Museum of Art, Atlanta); light, atmosphere subjects with The Jolly Flatboatmen, by George Caleb Bingham (see illustration); and Far West subjects in The Life of a Hunter - a Tight Fix by Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, 1856, (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art). But the exhibit also covers the change in painting influences during this time.

Guillaume Faroult, curator of this exhibition, is curator of English, US and Australian paintings at the Louvre. In a telephone conversation last week, he spoke with enthousiasm about New Frontier and the painters selected for the current exhibit. He said that because Johnson and Bingham were among the first American painters to "couper le cordon avec l'Angleterre" (translation: cut the ties - implying the umbilical cord - with England) they were interesting choices. Both painters trained in Dusseldorf and were influenced by 17th century Dutch genre paintings notably the work of Jan Steen. The Louvre did not miss out on the opportunity to show the three painters together for the first time. Visitors to the exhibit can compare the similitude between the gestures and expressions of Bingham's Jolly Flatboatmen, on loan from the Terra Foundation and Steen's Joyeux repas de famille from the Louvre's collection.

German-born Emmanuel Leutze (Washington Crossing the Deleware) was also a member of the Dusseldorf School. The exhibit displays a scene from a series of Leutze's paintings on the story of Christopher Columbus (a recent gift from the American Friends of the Louvre association). This painting makes a final statement about American genre painting in that Leutze's historical subject is executed in the smaller genre painting format.

Monsieur Faroult also explained the roles of three American partners participating in the New Frontier venture: the Chicago based Terra Foundation, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the brand-new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The Terra Foundation promotes American Art throughout the world participating in exhibitions and symposiums. They are very present in Paris with a research center and have also been actively working with the Louvre on several projects since the early 2000s, of which the Lafayette database that gathers information relating to American paintings in European museums. The High Museum of Art has a large collection of American art based in Atlanta. Over a period of three years (2006-2009), they exhibited works from the Louvre in Atlanta.

The Crystal Bridges Museum that opened in 2011, has a collection of lesser known and historical American paintings. These types of art works provide an interesting addition to the exhibits. Their current contribution is the painting by Tait, an action-packed illustration destined to make the observer hold his breath in worried anticipation as he unfolds the elements of the scene: a kneeling hunter pulls back his arm preparing a knife-blow to the abdomen of a snarling, wounded black bear. The bear has managed to wrestle the hunter's rifle away from him and is standing on it. Who will win the battle? Perhaps the hunter's friend, poised to shoot in the background, is aiming at the ferocious beast, but is he looking in the right direction?

The selection of paintings shown in New Frontier II introduces us to a new and intriguing subject. Luckily there are options if you would like to see more. The exhibit catalogue - with an essay by Peter John Brownlee of the Terra Foundation - is available in French in the Louvre bookshop, along with Guillaume Faroult's essay on Thomas Cole from the first installment of New Frontier on landscape paintings (published in English). There is also a series of conferences, mostly on Monday evenings, scheduled in the Louvre auditorium this month.

After that we'll have to wait until 2014 for the next New Frontier installment. Monsieur Faroult indicated the theme will be portraits. For the occasion, Charles Wilson Peale's portrait of George Washington that was given to Louis XVI by the American people as a thank you gift following the American Revolution will be exhibited for the first time since its recent restoration!

- CSL

Paris Notes and the American Clubs would like to thank Guillaume Faroult for his explanations about the exhibit and the Louvre's plans for developing interest in art from the North American continent.

NEW FRONTIER II
through April 22, 2013
at the Louvre
Denon wing, First floor, Room 32 (Salle Gainsborough)

Opening hours:
Wednesday through Monday
9:30 am-5:30 pm
Evening hours on Wednesday and Friday to 9:30 pm

Link to Exhibit page on Louvre website

Link to Terra Foundation website

Link to High Museum of Art website

Link to Crystal Bridges Museum website

Le japonisme at the Manufacture Prelle

Japan fascinates. Throughout the world, people seem to fall head-over-heels in love with the Japanese way of life: the cuisine, the etiquette, the art. In the late 19th century, all of Europe was under the spell of the Japanese aesthetic. And the European aesthetic called japonisme, is currently a la mode in Paris. (Think the Van Gogh exhibit at the Pinacotheque.) Right now, the manufacture Prelle is showcasing a French example of japonisme with a selection of archives dating 1850 to 1930.

For those who need an introduction, Prelle is a silk weaving company that can trace its story back to 1752. For the past five generations, the Prelle/Verzier family has run the manufacture. Since the end of the Second World War, the specialty of the maison is weaving replicas of its historical (and often historic) documents for monuments throughout France, Europe and even in the United States. Today the majority of Prelle's production is for private end-clients with prestigious homes throughout the world. Prelle continues to weave from its archive of fabrics that span the centuries between the days of Louis XIV through the 1950s.

This winter, the Prelle Paris showroom has been transformed into a boudoir japonisant with extravagant furniture from the late nineteenth century: a day-bed settled into an oriental-style fauve, or a wardrobe with a very intricate system of shelves for different-sized objects made in sleek, dark wood encrusted with an ivory parakeet. Gabriel Viardot imagined both of these pieces. He was a very active ebeniste in the 1880s and specialized in heavy, animated furniture for artists and collectors interested in Japanese art. (He created the display cases for Madame d'Ennery's extensive collections of Far Eastern art - I'll talk more about this and the Musee d'Ennery's re-opening next week.)

But the heart of the Prelle exhibit are the textile creations from the Manufacture Prelle. The most impressive fabrics look like woven paintings. They were created by artists who worked specifically for the silk fabricants in Lyons with names like: Martin, Roux and most of all Eugene Prelle who was very likely also the brain behind the incredible collection of over 150 katagami that remain in the Prelle archive today. Katagami are stencils used in the confection of traditional kimono cloths. They were collected by Europeans as art objects at the same time as they collected engravings by Hiroshige or Hokusai.

Silver archives from Christofle and crystal pieces from Baccarat are also presented in the exhibit, adding depth to the story of japonisme in French crafts.

If you decide to go for a visit, be sure to say you've read Paris Notes - and you'll get a special guided tour!

Until next time, sayonara!
CSL

Le japonisme et les exotismes dans la soierie lyonnaise
Through March 29, 2013

Manufacture Prelle
5 Place des Victoires
75001 Paris
tel. 01 42 36 67 21
.
Prelle's hours are
Monday through Thursday: 9am-6pm
Friday: 9am-5pm

Link to Prelle website