Marie Laurencin

MARIE LAURENCIN (Paris, 1883-1956).
"Female portrait", 1938.
Watercolor on paper.
Signed and dated in the upper margin.
Provenance: Armand Drouant gallery, Paris.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by Armand Drouant, foreign trade advisor.
Measurements: 23 x 20 cm; 49 x 46 cm (frame).

This delicate watercolor by Marie Laurencin, dated 1938, is a refined example of the lyrical and feminine universe that the Parisian artist constructed with unmistakable subtlety throughout her career. Originally linked to the cubist circle of Apollinaire and Picasso, Laurencin developed an autonomous style, with ethereal contours and subdued chromaticism, far removed from the geometric rigor of her contemporaries. Instead, he opted for a poetics of the soft, the intimate and the graceful, in tune with an almost musical sensibility.

In this portrait, the figure of a young woman appears recollected in an attitude of silent introspection. Her face, with delicate features, gazes down with a self-absorbed gesture. The carmine lips, the pale green almond-shaped eyes and the diadem of fabric leaves adorning her brown hair form a typically Laurentian feminine ideal: stylized, soft and dreamy. We discover her in the intimate act of dressing. One of her shoulders is still bare, while the other is already covered by a blouse with diamonds in pastel shades: yellow and sky blue, a pattern that introduces a serene and harmonious visual rhythm. The pearl necklace, recurrent in Laurencin's iconography, reinforces this atmosphere of silent refinement and timeless femininity.

French painter, engraver and theatrical designer of the cubist group linked to the Section d'Or group. Marie Laurencin began as a porcelain painter in Sèvres in 1901. She would later move to Pays to take drawing classes at the Paris municipal art school and at the Académie Humbert (1903-1904), where she met Georges Braque. She exhibited for the first time in 1907 at the Salon des Indépendants, after which the art dealer Clovis Sagot introduced her to Pablo Picasso3 and the group of artists of the Bateau-Lavoir de Montmartre. That same year, Picasso introduced her to Guillaume Apollinaire, with whom she would maintain a relationship that would last until 1912 and in which they both influenced each other artistically and intellectually. Although she was initially interested in Fovism, Marie Laurencin began to simplify the forms in her painting influenced by Cubism, although she never ascribed to this stylistic current.4 She was also inspired by Persian miniatures and Rococo art.1 From 1910 her most used tones would be grays, pinks and other pastels.2 She took part in group exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants (1910-1911) and the Salon d'Automne (1911-1912). In 1912 she held her second major exhibition at the Barbazanges Gallery, which was the first solo exhibition by a woman artist. Associated with Sonia and Robert Delaunay thanks to a meeting organized by Francis Picabia, Marie Laurencin composed several poems for art magazines during the year 1917. In 1920, she had another exhibition at the gallery of P. Rosenberg. In 1921, after separating from her husband, she returned permanently to Paris where Paul Guillaume, whom she met thanks to Apollinaire, served as her art dealer. At that time Marie Laurencin began to draw ethereal female figures again in pastel tones. Her pictorial style included the use of fluid and soft colors, the simplification of the composition and the predilection for elongated female forms that allowed her to occupy a privileged place in the Paris of the 1920s. She illustrated works by André Gide, Max Jacob, Saint-John Perse, Marcel Jouhandeau, Jean Paulhan and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, among others. She became the official portraitist of the world of women's styling, portraying women such as Nicole Groult, Helena Rubinstein, Colette and Coco Chanel. From 1920, Marie Laurencin also worked as a decorator and costume designer for the ballet The Hinds (1924), by Francis Poulenc, and also for the companies of the Opéra-Comique, the Ballets Russes, La Comédie Française and the ballets of Roland Petit at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. In the 1930s, due to the economic crisis resulting from the Great Depression, Marie Laurencin worked as an art teacher in a private academy. She lived in Paris until her death in 1956. In 1983, the Marie Laurencin Museum in Nagano, Japan, which houses more than 500 of the artist's works, was opened to the public. Laurecin's works include paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints. Although she did not consider herself a cubist, today she is known as one of the few women who integrated this movement, among them Sonia Delaunay, Marevna Vorobev and Franciska Clausen.