Galerie Dreyfus
50
-
MARIE LAURENCIN (PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Anemones in a Bl…
See original version (French)
50
-
MARIE LAURENCIN (PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Anemones in a Bl…
See original version (French)
Estimate €60,000 - €75,000
Voluntary lot
Description
MARIE LAURENCIN
(PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Anemones in a Blue Vase
1933
Oil on canvas
49 x 64.5 cm.
Signed and dated lower left ‘Marie Laurencin 1933’
Publication
Work reproduced in the Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, Daniel Marchesseau, Paris,
1986, p. 247, no. 564.
Some fifteen anemones with wide-open corollas emerge from an oblong blue
vase, positioned at the centre of the composition. There is no suggestion of space or even
depth. The vase sits flush with the edge of the frame, whilst the background features a gradient ranging from
light yellow to dark grey, abruptly interrupted by a pinkish band on the right. Reduced to
their simplest forms—the disc of a black pistil at the centre of a multi-lobed mass evoking
the petals—these flowers are a kind of sketch. The poetry that emanates from them, characteristic of Marie
Laurencin, lies in a certain naivety of touch, with bold yet subtle colours,
in a palette that is instantly recognisable. The warm greys of the background serve, in fact, to
enhance the brighter tones of the anemones—various shades of red and mauve, punctuated by
white. The royal blue of the vase, with its mass, underpins the entire composition and lends it its
strength. Just as in her portraits, which employ the same colour scheme, Marie Laurencin
likes to synthesise forms and colours to capture the essence of her subjects.
Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) was a French portrait painter, poet and illustrator. Enrolled at
the École de Sèvres to train as a porcelain painter, as well as at the Académie Humbert, she
became friends with Braque and Picabia. In 1907, she exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants
alongside Picasso and Derain, thus dabbling in Cubism as part of her famous
Group of Artists, now in the Baltimore Museum. Her fame then grew in France, and subsequently
in Germany. Exiled to Spain during the First World War, she frequented the
Dada scene, though her style proved largely impervious to the influences of those artists. It was in the
interwar period that her career as a society portraitist reached its peak. Her distinctive
style sought not so much a likeness to the model as a recognisable mask created by her palette
of flat areas of cool colours. Her portraits, whilst fashionable objects in their own right, also express a
search for the eternal feminine. Her graceful bouquets of flowers seem to be their
vegetal counterpart, seeking the same sense of simplicity.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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