It's been some time since I have written about great women artists and it is time. Most have not heard of Marie Laurencin, but she sure had some famous friends. Like Mademoiselle Chanel.
Marie Laurencin - Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel, 1923 Source
Marie was born in Paris and studied porcelain painting before falling in with hip cats of the day: Braque, Picasso, Gris, Apollinaire. Were these artists aware that they were to become something significant? Did they instinctively seek each other out? Were any perfectly ordinary friends among them now lost to history?
Marie Laurencin, Group of Artists (1908). Image
via Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.
Marie was there when crazy notion of cubism cane about. A few of her pieces have a whisper of cubist lines and sober colors. But mostly Maurie Laurencin stuck with what she did best, lovely, effervescent, with the same cast of languid girls.
Marie Laurencin - Les jeunes filles - Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Why isn't Marie Laurencin's name known worldwide like the names of her posse? Was she too much of a one-note? Is her art just too pretty, lightweight, lacking the grit that would make it important? Perhaps it is all those things, pleasant and superficial.
Virginia Woolf's older sister, Vanessa Bell, was a talented artist and among Bloomsbury Group's founders. Bloomsbury group draws one like a bohemian Camelot, it still feels oh-so-very modern more than a century later. What it must have been like to be in the room with these artistic intellectuals, a product of their time?
This portrait by Vanessa Bell (currently at Tate) is stare-worthy. The colors and the rendering of the face are lovely and somehow cozy, like tweed and wool.
Helen Dudley by Vanessa Bell (1915ish) - currently at the Tate
I have been slacking all April but Wednesdays are back with Lucian Freud's depiction of HRH Queen Elizabeth. Because he is related to the other Freud and has a way with a paintbrush and she is thoroughly modern.
I don't know where the portrait actually resides but this came from BBC. Apparently there is come controversy about the depiction but I like it!
Kids Books Month was a blast and I intend to revisit that topic in the near future. But in the meantime I have quite neglected the Klatch over the past week. Change of clocks in the fall always gets me down. But I am here to make amends. So here is an assortment of topics that has preoccupied me over these past days:
On Monday I pondered the popularity of Klatch post on artist Sonia Delaunay, thought written months ago it gets a steady trickle of traffic. I do wonder if writings on great artists like Sonia are scarce? Note to self: highlight another perfectly modern dame in November.
Unnamed Lithography by Sonia Delaunay (source: ArtNet.com)
On Tuesday I poked around HelloGiggles, the girliest of websites from Zooey Deschanel.
Hello Giggles founders
[Warning, if you are not a fan of unpleasant topics, move right along past Wednesday’s topic].
On Wednesday I wondered what happen to Sylvia Plath. I know what happen to her, but wanted to know a bit more about her and the road that took her to stick her head in the oven at age 30. Almost wish I did not read up about Plath’s biography. Sylvia’s two toddlers were sound asleep in their cots while their mama busied herself in the kitchen on that fateful morning. But it didn’t end there. Assia, Sylvia’s estranged husband’s lover, also killed herself and her four-year-old daughter by turning on the gas stove. Decades later Sylvia’s son hung himself. This saga really bothers me to the core. Sylvia might be a Klatch topic in the future, once I actually read the Bell Jar and make amends with their tale.
Sylvia
Assia Wevill and little Shura
On Thursday I found out about Weirdsister College, British TV series about college for witches. It sure smacks of Hogwarts but it is not on Netflix. Does anyone know where I can watch it online and if it is any good?
Today on Friday I am thinking about shadow puppets. Perhaps not as elaborate as this Victorian version, but I anticipate we will be entertaining ourselves by staging a play over Thanksgiving break, will keep you posted!
These remind me of Lemony Snickets!
Unitl next Klatch - what strange esoteric topics have you been thinking about?
Sonia Delaunay is a fine choice and I cannot resist to share just a bit about her. The artist was born Sarah Stern in Ukraine (or Russia, depending on what year the map was published). At a young age, Sonia moved to St. Petersburg and became Sonia Terk after her affluent uncle and aunt adopted her and encouraged her talent.
Eventually Sonia went where all artists flocked – Paris – where she met her husband, a fellow artist Robert Delaunay (there was also a first marriage to a gallery owner but it was largely assumed to be a union of convenience on both sides).
Though both Sonia and Robert Delaunay are known for colorful abstract spheres, Sonia was prolific in other, perhaps more commercial, areas. She designed costumes, textiles, clothing, murals, and even dabbled with interior design.
Unnamed Lithography by Sonia Delaunay (source: ArtNet.com)
More Favorite Painting picks to come – and send me yours!
Though I cannot pronounce her name and cannot relate to her world, her art fills me with joy. Flowing swirls of color that fill the canvas to the edges, each contained in itself.
Yam Dreaming - yes, it's about yams. This piece is quite large, 60x35.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born sometime in 1910s somewhere in Central Australia. By all accounts she had a very ordinary life and didn’t take up painting seriously until she was in her 80s but was very prolific, churning out more than 3,000 paintings.
Body Paint
It is almost certain that Emily was not familiar with the works of Pollock or Rothko and her paintings do not display depth of skill. Yet she became one of the most renown and important Aboriginal artists.
Ceremony II
Her pink lines are my favorite but this deceptively simple yellow painting is a close runner up.
photos of Emily Kame Kngwarreye art from Aboriginal-Art.com
I embarked on this post to dig into style icons and who they really are. My first pick is legendary soprano Maria Callas. Who is the person behind the graceful woman and lovely voice?
The elegant coat, the cateye, the jewels!
Photo: Corbis Sygm
From all appearances Maria Callas was not an easy woman nor did she have an easy life. Madame Callas had a dysfunctional relationship with her mother. She was said to be temperamental and rumored to have rivalry with another soprano. Oh yes, there is also her involvement with Aristotle Onassis that started while she was still married. In a word, a diva.
Just one more surprise in store. Maria Callas use to be …heavy. My quick scan of the web universe did not yield any photos and looking at the dramatic opera beauty it is hard to imagine, but that’s what icons are, a distillation of a person to a few images.
80 lbs later
Photo: Cecil Beaton/Camera Press/Retna
At the end of the day, primadonna or not, I could listen to her O Mio Babbino Caro for eternity.
Maria Sibylla Merian isn’t a household name and that’s a shame. She was a talented artist whose keen eye and skilled hand revolutionized botany and zoology. Maria got married at just eighteen but a few years later ditched her husband and supported her aging mother and two daughters with her art. She published an illustrated book. When she was in her fifties, she packed her bags and went for a lengthy expedition in Suriman jungle, to observe tropical insects in their habitat. She published more books. Oh yes, she was also born in 1647, time we hardly associate with spunky and accomplished women of the science and arts.
Here a few of her lovely, genteel plates
Pretty little pomegranates (1665)
Plantain plants documenting metamorphosis of a moth (1679)
Creepy-crawlies (1719)
Photos: The J. Paul Getty Museum
Caiman goes after a snake. Photo: The British Museum
