ESSA Paris: Marie Laurencin

 

Marie Laurencin was born in Paris, France on the 31st of October in the year 1883 and was known for her paintings and her prints. She made a name for herself among the Cubists and avant-garde art (meaning new or innovative art for her time). When she turned 18, she started to study porcelain painting in Sèvres, France but when she returned to Paris to study art at the Académie Humbert, she changed her focus to oil painting. Working in circles with individuals such as Pablo Picasso, she contributed to the LGBTQ community with works of art described as “queer femme with a Gallic twist” (Pilcher, Alex (2017). A Queer Little History of Art. London: Tate Publishing. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-84976-503-9.). She died in Paris on the 8th of June 1956. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laurencin)

I think her contributions to the world of art and the city of Paris come in two different ways. First, she was a magnificent artist. Her 1923 piece Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel with its airy brushstrokes and pastel colors demonstrates how she based her paintings in Cubism but then created something entirely her own. Second, she was a popular and financially successful woman during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. She created ethereal landscapes dominated by women during a time when women were almost always depicted by men. In both the artistic and feminist worlds, she was an influencer.

Her influence lives on to the present day. Her paintings are displayed in institutions such as the Musée de l'Orangerie, where I got to see her Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Tate Gallery in London, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and the Musée Marie Laurencin opened in Nagano, Japan which is devoted solely to her works. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laurencin) She is unique among the women we have studied so far in that there is no public work named after her. This leads me to believe that her work has been commemorated well while she has not.