Galerie Dreyfus
51
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MARIE LAURENCIN (PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Young Girls at t…
See original version (French)
51
-
MARIE LAURENCIN (PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Young Girls at t…
See original version (French)
Estimate €100,000 - €130,000
Voluntary lot
Description
MARIE LAURENCIN
(PARIS, 1883 – PARIS, 1956)
Young Girls at the Castle
Oil on canvas
55 x 45 cm.
Signed ‘Marie Laurencin’ top right
Judging by the young girls’ costumes – gauze tutus – the scene appears to be
taking place on a stage, a suggestion reinforced by their affected poses and the dance steps
they are sketching out. A strange choreography, however, which features a dog whose raised
paw echoes the young girl’s arm. The tree is therefore likely a prop, as is the river in
the background, the whole forming a bucolic setting in which these ballet nymphs
might be performing. In the distance, on the other side of the riverbank, a third figure waves an immense
curtain descending from the roof of a large building, in a gesture that is itself theatrical. As a
fictionalised element, this painted backdrop can thus be seen as a picture within a picture. The boundary is all the more
blurred between the different elements because Marie Laurencin’s style does not seek a
realistic effect, let alone an illusionist one. Her light, airy brushstrokes and her palette of
pale, almost diaphanous colours, playing with gradations of pastel shades, maintain the impression of an
almost evanescent, dreamlike world. These two young girls might just as easily have stepped
out of this unreal castle as ballerinas in a fairy tale. Their simplified features,
like their colours, blend into the background. Their brown hair and fair complexions
bring them into harmony with the two towers, as if they were their very embodiment. More than
theatre, this is painting. Marie Laurencin’s ethereal and harmonious brushwork takes precedence
over the subject matter and defines a unique style in which grace vies with poetry.
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 in her famous
*Groupe d’artistes*, now in the Baltimore Museum. Her reputation then grew in France, and later
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 during the
interwar period that her career as a society portraitist reached its peak. Her distinctive style
seeks not so much a likeness to the subject as a recognisable mask created by her palette
of flat areas of cool colours. Whilst her portraits are fashionable works, they also express the
search for an eternal femininity.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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