View source for Marie Laurencin

{{Short description|French painter, poet and printmaker}}
{{redirect|Laurencin|the author|Laurencin (author)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Marie Laurencin
| image         = Marie Laurencin, c.1912, Paris.jpg
| image_size    =
| caption       = Marie Laurencin, c. 1912, Paris
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1883|10|31|df=y}}
| birth_place   = Paris, France
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|df=y|1956|6|8|1883|10|31}}
| death_place   = Paris, France
| nationality   =
| known_for     = Painter
| training      =
| movement      = [[Cubism]]
| notable_works =
| patrons       =
| awards        =
}}{{Expand French|topic=bio|date=June 2020}}
'''Marie Laurencin''' (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a French painter and printmaker.<ref>[[Maurice Raynal]]: ''Modern French Painters'', Ayer Publishing, 1928, p. 108. {{ISBN|978-0-405-00735-4}}.</ref> She became an important figure in the Parisian [[Avant-garde#:~:text=The avant-garde (/ˌ,art, culture, or society.|avant-garde]] as a member of the [[Cubism|Cubists]] associated with the [[Section d'Or]].

==Biography==
Laurencin was born in [[Paris]], where she would live for most of her life.<ref>Phaidon Editors, ''Great Women Artists''. Phaidon Press, 2019, p. 233. {{ISBN|978-0714878775}}</ref> She was raised there by her mother, Pauline-Mélanie Laurencin (1861–1913), an unmarried domestic servant.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/on1375547895 |title=Marie Laurencin. Sapphic Paris |publisher=The Barnes Foundation |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-300-27363-2 |editor-last=Fraquelli |editor-first=Simonetta |location=Philadelphia |pages=165 |oclc=on1375547895 |editor-last2=Kang |editor-first2=Cindy}}</ref> Although never confirmed, Marie Laurencin believed that she had [[Creole peoples|Creole]] heritage through her maternal grandmother, something she saw as part of her identity her whole life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fraquelli |first=Simonetta |title=Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris |last2=Kang |first2=Cindy |date=2023 |publisher=the Barnes Foundation |others= |isbn=978-0-300-27363-2 |location=Philadelphia |pages=6}}</ref> Her father, fiscal administrator Alfred-Stanislas Toulet (1839–1905), visited her during her childhood and paid for her education.<ref name=":0" /> At 18, she studied [[porcelain painting]] in [[Sèvres]]. She then returned to Paris and continued her art education at the Académie Humbert, where she changed her focus to [[oil painting]].
[[File:Marie Laurencin, 1909, Réunion à la campagne (Apollinaire et ses amis), oil on canvas, 130 x 194 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris.jpg|thumb|263px|Marie Laurencin, 1909, ''Réunion à la campagne'' (''Apollinaire et ses amis''), oil on canvas, 130 x 194&nbsp;cm, [[Musée Picasso]], Paris. Reproduced in ''[[The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations]]'' (1913)]]
During the early years of the 20th century, Laurencin was an important figure in the Parisian [[avant-garde]]. A member of both the circle of [[Pablo Picasso]], and Cubists associated with the [[Section d'Or]], such as [[Jean Metzinger]], [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Robert Delaunay]], [[Henri le Fauconnier]], and [[Francis Picabia]], exhibiting with them at the [[Salon des Indépendants]] (1910–1911) and the [[Salon d'Automne]] (1911–1912), and [[Galeries Dalmau]] (1912) at the first Cubist exhibition in Spain. She became romantically involved with the poet [[Guillaume Apollinaire]], and has often been identified as his muse. In addition, Laurencin had important connections to the [[literary salon|salon]] of the American [[expatriate]] and lesbian writer [[Natalie Clifford Barney]]. She had relationships with men and women,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.glbtq.com/arts/laurencin_m.html |title=Laurençin, Marie |work=glbtq.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921102824/http://www.glbtq.com/arts/laurencin_m.html |archive-date=21 September 2013 }}</ref> and her art reflected her life, her "balletic wraiths" and "sidesaddle [[Amazons]]" providing the art world with her brand of "queer femme with a Gallic twist."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pilcher|first=Alex|title=A Queer Little History of Art|publisher=Tate Publishing|year=2017|isbn=978-1-84976-503-9|location=London|pages=37}}</ref> She had a forty years long love relationship with fashion designer {{ill|Nicole Groult|fr|Nicole Groult}}.

During the [[World War I|First World War]], Laurencin left France for exile in Spain with her German-born husband, the artist, Baron Otto von Waëtjen, since through her marriage she had automatically lost her French citizenship. The couple subsequently lived together briefly in [[Düsseldorf]]. She was greatly affected by her separation from the French capital, the unrivaled center of artistic creativity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artwork/spanish-dancers|title=Musée d'Orsay}}</ref> After they divorced in 1920, she returned to Paris, where she achieved financial success as an artist until the economic depression of the 1930s. During the 1930s she worked as an art instructor at a private school. She lived in Paris until her death.

==Work==
Laurencin's works include paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints. She is known as one of the few female [[Cubist]] painters, with [[Sonia Delaunay]], [[Marie Vorobieff]], and [[Franciska Clausen]], although she later distanced herself from it, stating in an interview in 1923: "Cubism has poisoned three years of my life, preventing me from doing any work. [...] As long as I was influenced by the great men surrounding me, I could do nothing."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fraquelli |first=Simonetta |title=Marie Laurencin: sapphic Paris [exhibition, Philadelphia, Barnes Foundation, October 22, 2023-January 21, 2024] |last2=Kang |first2=Cindy |date=2023 |publisher=the Barnes Foundation |others=Barnes foundation |isbn=978-0-300-27363-2 |location=Philadelphia |pages=3-4}}</ref> While her work shows the influence of Cubist painters [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Georges Braque]], who was her close friend, she developed a unique approach to [[abstract art|abstraction]] which often centered on the representation of groups of women and animals. Her work lies outside the bounds of Cubist norms in her pursuit of a specifically feminine aesthetic by her use of pastel colors and curvilinear forms. Originally influenced by [[Fauvism]], she simplified her forms through the influence of the Cubist painters. From 1910, her palette consisted mainly of grey, pink, and pastel tones.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Marie Laurencin {{!}} Musée de l'Orangerie|url=https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin|access-date=27 September 2020|website=www.musee-orangerie.fr|archive-date=27 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210727171551/https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Her distinctive style developed upon her return to Paris in the 1920s post exile. The muted colours and the geometric patterns inherited from Cubism were replaced by light tones and undulating compositions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artwork/spanish-dancers|title=Musée d'Orsay}}</ref> Her signature motif is marked by willowy, ethereal female figures, and a palette of soft pastel colours, evoking an enchanted world.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Marie Laurencin {{!}} Musée de l'Orangerie|url=https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin|access-date=27 September 2020|website=www.musee-orangerie.fr|archive-date=27 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210727171551/https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin|url-status=dead}}</ref> Art history professor Libby Otto said, "Marie Laurencin is of the 'lipstick lesbian' variety: She constructs this very soft, feminine world that really spoke to viewers at the time. And if you realize that, in her soft way, she's constructing a world without men, of female harmony, there's something pretty revolutionary in there as well."<ref>Lange, Maggie, [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/style/marie-laurencin-barnes-foundation.html "The Exhibition Making the Case for Art Without Men"] ''The New York Times'', 25 October 2023.</ref>

Laurencin continued to explore themes of femininity and what she considered to be feminine modes of representation until her death. Her works include paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints.

<gallery widths="170" heights="170" caption="Selected works">
File:Marie Laurencin, 1910-11, Les jeunes filles, Jeune Femmes (Young Girls), oil on canvas, 115 x 146 cm, Moderna Museet, Stockholm.jpg|1910-11, ''Les jeunes filles (Jeune Femmes, Young Girls)'', oil on canvas, 115 x 146&nbsp;cm. Exhibited [[Salon des Indépendants]], 1911, [[Moderna Museet]], Stockholm
File:Marie Laurencin, 1911, Die Jungen Damen, Les jeunes femmes, The young women.jpg|1911, ''La Toilette des jeunes filles (Die Jungen Damen)'', black and white photograph. Exhibited at the 1913 [[Armory Show]], New York, Chicago and Boston
File:Marie Laurencin, Femme à l'éventail, Reproduced in Du "Cubisme", 1912.jpg|1912, ''Femme à l'éventail (Woman with a Fan)'', black and white photograph published in [[Albert Gleizes]], [[Jean Metzinger]], ''[[Du "Cubisme"]]'', Edition Figuière, Paris, 1912
File:Marie Laurencin, 1913, Le Bal élégant, La Danse à la campagne..jpg|1913, ''Le Bal élégant, La Danse à la campagne''
File:Woman Holding Flowers by Marie Laurencin (1921).jpg|1921, ''Woman Holding Flowers''
File:Marie Laurencin, 1921, Portrait de Jean Cocteau.jpg|1921, ''Portrait de [[Jean Cocteau]]''
File:Womanpainterandhermodel.jpg|1921, ''Woman Painter and Her Model'', oil on canvas
File:Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel 1923 Oil on canvas.jpg|1923, ''Portrait de [[Coco Chanel|Mademoiselle Chanel]]'', oil on canvas
File:Femmes au chien 1923 oil on canvas.jpg|1923, ''Femmes au chien'', oil on canvas
File:LaurencinPortrait.jpg|1924, ''Self-Portrait'', oil on canvas
</gallery>

==Collections==
Laurencin's artistic accomplishments are seen in collections around the world. On the 100th anniversary of her birth in 1983, the Musée Marie Laurencin opened in Nagano, Japan.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sotheby's - Marie Laurencin |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/marie-laurencin}}</ref> To date, the Musée Marie Laurencin is the only museum in the world that solely contains the art of a female painter. Founder [[Masahiro Takano]] was enamored with Laurencin's sensual and lyrical worldview, and the museum holds over 600 art pieces by her. 

Laurencin's work is also found in [[The Museum of Modern Art]] in New York, the [[Barnes Foundation]] in Philadelphia, the [[Hermitage Museum]] in St. Petersburg, and the [[Tate Gallery]] in London. Her work is also shown in the permanent collection of the [[Musée de l'Orangerie]] gallery in Paris, France, housing some of her most famous pieces.

In 2023, the [[Barnes Foundation]] opened a retrospective of Laurencin's work, titled ''Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris.''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chernick |first=Karen |date=16 January 2024 |title=A Marie Laurencin Exhibition Offers a View into the Lesbian Circles of 1920s Paris |url=https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/marie-laurencin-artist-who-is-why-art-important-barnes-foundation-exhibition-1234692934/ |access-date=17 January 2024 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

== See also ==

* ''[[The Spanish Dancers]]'', a 1921 painting by Laurencin

== Notes ==
<references />

==References==
* Birnbaum, Paula J. ''Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities'', Aldershot, Ashgate, 2011.
* Fraquelli, Simonetta, and Kang, Cindy, eds. ''Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris'', [[Barnes Foundation]], 2023. Catalog to exhibition listed under External links.
* Gere, Charlotte. ''Marie Laurencin'', London - Paris, Flammarion, 1977
* [[Flora Groult|Groult, Flora]]. ''Marie Laurencin'', Paris, Mercure de France, 1987
* Kahn, Elizabeth Louise. "Marie Laurencin: Une Femme Inadaptée" in ''Feminist Histories of Art'' Ashgate Publishing, 2003.
* Marchesseau, Daniel. ''Marie Laurencin'', Tokyo, éd. Kyuryudo & Paris, Hazan, 1981
* Marchesseau, Daniel. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=2U080AEACAAJ Marie Laurencin, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre gravé]'', Tokyo, éd. Kyuryudo, 1981
* Marchesseau, Daniel. ''Marie Laurencin, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint'', 2 vol. Tokyo, éd. Musée Marie Laurencin, 1985 & 1999
* Marchesseau, Daniel. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Fj6XwwEACAAJ Marie Laurencin, Cent Œuvres du musée Marie Laurencin]'', Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, 1993
* Marchesseau, Daniel, ''Marie Laurencin'', Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet / Hazan, 2013
* {{cite web|last=Otto|first=Elizabeth|author-link=Elizabeth Otto|title=Memories of Bilitis: Marie Laurencin beyond the Cublist Context|website=genders.org|year=2002|url=http://www.genders.org/g36/g36_otto.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070212034859/http://www.genders.org/g36/g36_otto.html|archive-date=12 February 2007}}
* Pierre, José. ''Marie Laurencin'', Paris, France-Loisirs, 1988
* [http://www.artnet.com/artists/marie-laurencin/ "Marie Laurencin"]. ''Artnet.com''. Artnet. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
* [http://marielaurencin.jp/en/history/ "History"]. ''marielaurencin.jp''. Musée Marie Laurencin. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
* [https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin "Musée d'Orsay"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210727171551/https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/artist/marie-laurencin |date=27 July 2021 }}. ''musee-orangerie.fr''. National Museums Meeting - Grand Palais. Retrieved 10 March 2021.

;Archives
* Fonds Marie Laurencin, Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Université de Paris

==External links==
{{wikisource|Author:Marie Laurencin}}
* {{Commons category-inline}}
{{Portal|France|LGBTQ|Visual arts|Biography}}
* [https://www.findlaygalleries.com/artists/period/marie-laurencin/ Marie Laurencin Bio] - Findlay Galleries
* [http://www.marielaurencin.com/ Marielaurencin.com ]
* [https://marielaurencin.jp/en/about/ Musée Marie Laurencin], Japan.
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/laurencin_marie.html Artcyclopedia.com: Marie Laurencin]
* [https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/exhibitions/marie-laurencin Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris] Exhibition at the [[Barnes Foundation]], 22 October 2023 - 21 January 2024. [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/style/marie-laurencin-barnes-foundation.html ''The New York Times'' review] [https://artherstory.net/marie-laurencin-sapphic-paris-a-review/ ''Art Herstory'' review] [https://www.broadstreetreview.com/reviews/the-barnes-foundation-presents-marie-laurencin-sapphic-paris ''Broad Street Review'']

{{Cubism}}
{{Guillaume Apollinaire|state=collapsed}}

{{ACArt}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laurencin, Marie}}
[[Category:1883 births]]
[[Category:1956 deaths]]
[[Category:French women painters]]
[[Category:20th-century French engravers]]
[[Category:Artists from Paris]]
[[Category:French engravers]]
[[Category:French women printmakers]]
[[Category:French bisexual women]]
[[Category:French bisexual artists]]
[[Category:Bisexual women artists]]
[[Category:Bisexual painters]]
[[Category:French LGBTQ painters]]
[[Category:French modern painters]]
[[Category:Modern printmakers]]
[[Category:French cubist artists]]
[[Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery]]
[[Category:20th-century French women artists]]
[[Category:Muses (persons)]]
[[Category:French women engravers]]
[[Category:People of Montmartre]]