Tableaux de marie laurencin biography

Should you want to spend a brisk fall weekend in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia’s cultural institutions have some offerings that are, at the least, diverting; at their best, they’re sublime. Be prepared, though, to queue up outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art — no, not for anything inside its august halls. Rather, it would be for “Rocky” (1980), A. Thomas Schomberg’s larger-than-life bronze portrait of Sylvester Stallone as the cinematic character that made him famous. 

You might recall the brouhaha that resulted upon Mr. Stallone gifting the piece to Philadelphia. The stairs leading up to the museum figured in a memorable scene from the original “Rocky,” and the actor thought Mr. Schomberg’s sculpture — really, a prop from “Rocky III” — was its own kind of homage. 

Arts professionals fretted that placing “Rocky” outside one of the country’s great museums would be a sign that the institution was ratifying kitsch. City officials, eager to place the work in a public venue, argued that the sculpture wasn’t “art as it has been defined by aesthetic standards,” and that won the day. What Messrs. Stallone and Schomberg made of this backhanded vote of support is a good question.

“Rocky” is a popular draw, occasioning lineups of tourists, curiosity seekers, and movie fans wanting photo ops. All the while, Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” (1902-04; cast 1919), ensconced on Benjamin Franklin Parkway just a hop, skip, and jump from Rocky Balboa, can’t get any love — unless the stray pigeon counts. Perhaps Rodin’s mascot for the museum that bears the sculptor’s name is mulling what, exactly, the role of artistic worth might be in a culture dominated by celebrity.

Two eye-catching banners on the exterior of the Philadelphia Museum herald celebrities of another sort. One of them is an internationally beloved Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer; the other is James McNeill Whistler or, even better, his mother. Although there were a healthy number of visito

“Presentism” is a term that has taken on new vitality in recent years. The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1916 as its first published usage in the sense that we now know the word—that is to say, the judgment or interpretation of past events, people, or works of art according to contemporary standards. We’ve all read or heard about instances in which historical figures have been deemed dubious, villainous, or worthy of censure when considered under the (ahem) elevated mores of twenty-first-century elite culture. Titian encourages rape, Frederick Douglass is a white supremacist, and John Wayne was—can you just imagine it?—a Republican. We know the routine. But is there an equal-and-opposite theory that imagines historical figures pondering how future audiences might consider their pursuits? This endeavor is, of course, an intellectual lark or, as a colleague has it, a stoner’s question. But there I was, visiting the Barnes Foundation, engaging in some “forwardism” by wondering what the painter Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) might think of her life and work being heralded under the “queer” rubric.

Which is how the Barnes is promoting “Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris,” an overview of one of the many fascinating figures populating the demimonde of early twentieth-century France. We learn upon reading the exhibition wall labels that “the excessive femininity of her art hinted at its queerness.” Writing in the catalogue, Rachel Silveri, a professor of art and art history at the University of Florida, avers that Laurencin’s femininity was “strategically coded, enabling her to achieve success in a masculinist art world while nonetheless picturing nonnormative desires.” The curators Simonetta Fraquelli and Cindy Kang write of Laurencin’s “almost exclusively female aesthetic.” Laurencin did state that the “geniu

Born out of wedlock, Marie Laurencin’s Creole mother ensured that she had a middle-class education. She, however, chose to devote herself to art and enrolled in the Ecole de Manufacture de Sèvres (a state-run porcelain factory), where she learned to paint on porcelain. While continuing to value and practice the decorative arts, she also learned fine art painting through private classes at l’Academie Humbert in Paris starting in 1904. There, she met Francis Picabia, and more importantly Georges Braque, who introduced her to Pablo Picasso and members of his circle. A regular at the Bateau-Lavoir, she was romantically involved with the writer Guillaume Apollinaire between 1907 and 1912 (Apollinaire and friends, a country gathering, oil on canvas, Musée national d’Art moderne, Paris, 1909). Although her work is situated on the fringes of Cubism, Laurencin regularly exhibited with the Cubists, including at the Salon des indépendants and with the “Section d’Or” at the Galérie La Boétie in 1912; also in 1912, she participated in the decoration of the maison cubiste by Duchamp-Vilion and André Mare, exhibited at the Salon d’automne. In June 1914, she married the Francophile German painter Otto von Watjen, and soon after had to flee to Spain following the declaration of war. Traveling between Madrid and Barcelona, she collaborated with Picabia at the magazine 391. After traveling through Dusseldorf, she returned to Paris on her own in 1921, after which she enjoyed a period of great success.

Represented by the dealer Paul Rosenberg in Paris since 1913, and by Alfred Flechtheim in Berlin, she exhibited regularly, sold many pieces, and received numerous commissions. Portrait de la baronne Gourgeaud à la mantille noire (MNAM, Paris, 1923), Portrait de Mlle Chanel (Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1923): many important personalities of the interwar period wanted their portraits painted by Laurencin. Her work is primarily influenced by Matisse’s style and the