Meet Mme Marval, A Feminist Fauve

Comité Jacqueline Marval, Paris

Today I am going to tell you about an artist and an art gallery that I have been keeping for just this moment. Because now the days are dark and dreary and some days it rains all day. And FYI, ‘intermittent rain’ isn’t any better. As we look towards the months ahead, it is with hope but without certainty that the situation will improve. The bright side? How’s this? My mask keeps my face warm and if I put the serious mask next to my face and my lovely Toile de Jouy mask on top of it, it’s not a bad look, all things considered. Something else? Well, some businesses, not exactly essential, did make the last cut, when the government cruelly closed Bon Marché mid-sale. Jacques Genin and Yann Couvreur are still open, for example. I will write about them and others soon, because if they aren’t already, they really must be in your carnet as you prepare for your next trip to Paris.

I don’t know if it is the same for you, but when I was an ex-pat living in Australia and now as an ex-pat living in Paris, serendipity plays a much bigger role in my life than it does when I am in San Francisco. This is what I mean. I was sitting in the American Church in Paris waiting for my friend Kathy to join me, waiting for a panel discussion led by Adrian Leeds, to begin. Kathy was late, something about taking the bus going the wrong way and the program was delayed. So, I turned to the person sitting to my left and we started talking. Maureen and I exchanged cards and promised to get in touch. Which we did a few months later, just after Confinement 1. She had been invited to lunch and asked me to join her. We would be going to the gallery/home of a friend of hers. We would be surrounded by paintings by an artist with whom this gallerist was completely smitten. There was lots to worry about, vis-a-vis Pandemic etiquette. Would our host and the other guests be mask scoffers or mask obsessives? Would there be elbow knocks or hand shakes? If we started with masks, would we put them back on between courses or abandoned them for the entire meal. I calmed my worries by googling the artist to whose work I would be introduced at lunch. I was going to be an interested guest. I really think that is the best thing you can do, be interested, almost more important than being interesting. As I learned about about the artist, I knew my interest would not be feigned.

When Maureen picked me up in her Mercedes SUV, I thought this can’t be good, where will she ever park this beast. And then, as we arrived at the gated street, which in Paris is a square or a villa or a cité but not a cul-de-sac since it wasn’t a dead end, the gates opened and parking was plentiful! (Figure 1)The rest of the afternoon was just as easy. The gallery is on the ground floor of a grand townhouse, with a glassed-in winter garden/atrium. Not many things can compare with light pouring in to the center of a space. (Figure 2) Eichler knew what he was doing. The nice thing about gorging on paintings at an art gallery, as opposed to say, gorging on tarts at a patisserie or baguettes at a boulangerie is that there is no remorse, no waves of nausea, that so often accompany those other indulgences. There is just no such thing as looking too long or too hard at a painting.

Figure 2. Comité Jacqueline Marval, Paris — Figure 2. Du Lac Fine Arts Gallery, Paris

Okay, I have put it off long enough. Drum roll please. The name of the artist I have only just recently met and to whom I am going to introduce you now, is Jacqueline Marval (Figure 3) whose work fills the Du Lac Fine Arts Gallery in Paris.

To begin. Jacqueline Marval was born Marie-Joséphine Vallet in 1866, in a little town near Grenoble. The second of 8 chidden, her parents were teachers, a profession then as now, under remunerated. Although she briefly followed her parents footsteps, she wisely married a traveling salesman, whose chief positive attribute was probably that he was never around. When their baby son died at 6 months, the marriage was pretty much over and Marval who was not yet Marval, moved on. First in Grenoble and then in Paris, she earned a living by making waistcoats, gilets, vests. Although none survive, they were apparently very much sought after. In looking at her later work, at her paintings, one can imagine that the embroidery which embellished her gilets were filled with flowers and swirls and patterns. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Danseuse de Notre Dame, Jacqueline Marval, 1921

Marval arrived in Paris in 1894/5, at the age of 29. Still making and embroidering waistcoats, she wasn’t alone, she arrived with a painter from Grenoble, Francois Joseph Girot.

Don’t you find it easier to make a big move like that, the way Marval did. It is really just too hard to show up somewhere and start a life. Better to come with somebody, even if you abandon them as soon as the time is right. And that is exactly what Marval did, she changed boys and beds and began a love affair with Girot’s friend, fellow Grenoblois, fellow artist and fellow student of Gustave Moreau, Jules Flandrin.

Living in an artistic enclave, Montparnasse, with an artist, surrounded by artists and being artistic, it seems only natural that Marval would exchange her embroidery needles for paint brushes. Initially she painted on cigar-box lids, which BTW is a thing. A few years earlier, in Australia, a group of artists held an exhibition entitled ‘9 by 5,’ a reference to the dimensions of a cigar box, on which most of their paintings were painted. If you don’t have money to buy canvases, any surface will do. And it is less intimidating to paint on such a surface, mistakes and false starts don’t cost anything.

Did Flandrin or Girot before him, give Marval painting lessons? We know that they studied with Gustave Moreau at the same time Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault did. Moreau is considered the inspiration for the group of artists, which included Marval and Matisee, and came to be known as the Fauves, (wild beasts ). The name was given to them by an art critic. It was not a compliment. Their paintings emphasize color over representation, combining saturated colors with a sort of modified pointillism. (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Open Window, Collioure, Henri Matisse, 1905

Figure 6. Women’s Life Class, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Alice Barber Stephens, 1879

Moreau’s students, who were male, had the option of applying for admission to the state-subsidized Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Private lessons were the only way women who wished to learn to paint, could. Traditionally, women painters were either daughters or wives of painters, like the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi or artists’ models, like Marval’s contemporary, Suzanne Valadon. For women who weren’t from artistic families or didn’t marry into one, but who could afford to take lessons with established artists or private academies, those lessons didn’t include life drawing. Considered inappropriate for young women, it also assured that women artists would never attain the same rank as their male contemporaries because history painting was considered the pinnacle of art and its reliance on an understanding of anatomy, could never be theirs. The 19th century American artist Thomas Eakins who taught at and eventually became the Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia insisted that female students be permitted to draw from the male nude model. Classes were segregated but Eakins was finally fired when he removed the loincloth from a male model so the young women could, well, I guess, could see what all the fuss was about. (Figure 6, Figure 7)

Figure 7. In the Studio, l’Académie Julian, Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881

Artists like Berthe Morisot initially had art lessons as most young women of her class did, because being able to draw, like being able to do needle point, play an instrument, maybe even sing on-key, were expected accomplishments of a young woman of means. When Morisot displayed real talent, her teacher cautioned her bourgeois family against continuing her studies. It wasn’t ladylike, it could damage her reputation. Mary Cassatt let nothing stop her in her desire to become an artist. But her family, ever protective of her reputation, had no intention of letting her travel from Pittsburgh to France on her own, so they moved to France with her. Then, as now, money makes things so much easier.

In 1901, Marvel submitted paintings to the Salon des Indépendants, a dozen were accepted. It was for that exhibition that she created the pseudonym by which she continues to be known. Taking the first 3 letters of her first name Mar(ie) and the first three letters of her last name Val(let). She became Marval. Why Jacqueline, I don’t know.

The Salon des Indépendants had been around for over 15 years when Marval first exhibited with it. Founded by a group of young artists, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro and others who were tired of having their work judged by a bunch of tradition bound academic artists, these young artists just wanted to show their work directly to the public.

Figure 8. Odalisque au Guepart, Jacqueline Marval, 1901

Figure 9. Grande Odalisque, J.A-D Ingres, 1814

Among the paintings Marval exhibited in the 1901 Salon des Indépendants was Odalisque au Guepard (Figure 8) which was hanging in the atrium space where I ate lunch. The art dealer Ambroise Vuillard bought it and either all or most of the dozen paintings Marval exhibited that year. An odalisque, is a chambermaid in a harem. And a harem is either the enclosed space where women in a Muslim household are sequestered or the sequestered women themselves. Europe’s fascination with the East, called Orientalism, manifested itself in ways besides pure racism. I mean in furniture, fashion, decorative arts and of course paintings like those by JAD Ingres, which you probably know. (Figure 9) His paintings and those by his contemporaries, typically depict a vaguely Eastern looking woman, on her side, either fore or aft, displaying either her well rounded buttocks or her well epilated pubis. It is an image that is meant to appeal to the discerning eye of a male spectator. We generally think of paintings like these as paintings by men for men, a celebration of the dominance, of the primacy of the male gaze.

So, what to make of Marval’s Odalisque with Cheetah which is a self-portrait. For women who painted nudes, as Marval did, it only makes sense to paint the body they knew best, their own. Marval’s Odalisque is a young woman with elegant hairdo and requisite well epilated pubis lying on a balustraded balcony between a flowered foreground and foliated background. A double layer of fabric protects her exposed flesh from the hard yellow and blue tile floor. Leaning on one elbow, she reaches with the other arm to stroke a cheetah. She faces forward, not exactly acknowledging the viewer, but certainly not trying to cover herself because of the viewer. Insolent, not really, independent, yes definitely.

Ingres’ Grande Odalisque by comparison, is certainly displayed for the delectation of the viewer. She offers us her ample bottom and turns towards us with a welcoming glance. Ingres’ young woman seems to need whomever is looking at her, Marval’s woman doesn’t.

Figure 10. Les Odalisques, Jacqueline Marval, 1902-03

Figure 11. Turkish Bath, J A-D Ingres, 1859

In Les Odalisques, (Figure 10) Marval has painted herself five times, nude or semi-nude seated; lying down and standing, clothed. The women’s elaborate headdresses are mostly different, their faces are mostly the same, well, they are all the same person - high forehead, almond eyes, aquiline nose, pointed chin. The group is involved in a variety of domesticated activities, knitting or crocheting, bringing tea or drinking it. They have been called prostitutes and maybe they are, relaxing on their day off, or in between clients. You can see how different Ingres' group, Turkish Bath, is. These women are only here because men are looking at them (Figure 11)

Figure 12 Demoiselles d’Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907

What about Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon (Figure 12) painted in 1907. He would have seen Marval’s painting of Odalisques some years before. And their paintings were hung next to each other in 1916 at the Salon d’Antin for which the title of Picasso’s painting went from Le Bordel d’Avignon to the Demoiselles d’Avignon. Calling a whore house a brothel just wasn’t the done thing back then. Picasso’s figures provided him with the opportunity to try a variety of different types, from Egyptian to Iberian to African in a proto-Cubist style. Marval isn’t going any of those places. Her replications of herself are at ease with each other, comfortable in one another’s company.

Figure 13. Five O’Clock Tea, Mary Cassatt, 1880

When I look at Marval’s paintings of these Odalisques, I am reminded of two kinds of paintings. Those by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Jacqueline Marval, too, of women they know, in domestic settings, whether interior spaces or enclosed exterior ones. One can argue that these women as just as insular, just as isolated, just as confined to their feminine spaces as the women in a Turkish harem. (Figures 13, 14, 15)

Figure 15. The Knitters, Jacqueline Marval, 1915

I am also reminded of Toulouse-Lautrec’s series on prostitutes which show them relaxed and happy, sharing quiet moments with each other in their hortus, their maison clos. (Figure 16)

Figure 16. Au Salon de la rue des Moulins, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894

Figure 17. Self Portrait, Florine Stettheimer, 1915

I saw an exhibition a few years ago at the Jewish Museum in New York on the artist Florine Stettheimer. I had never heard of her. Wealthy, she dabbled in lots of arts and since she was Jewish and couldn’t participate in high society, she held her own, ecumenical salons. She contentedly lived with her two sisters but anybody who was anybody, including Gertrude Stein and Marcel Duchamp, were her friends. Like Marval, she painted domestic scenes of herself and people she knew. And like Marval, she painted a nude self-portrait, (Figure 17) which one art critic has recently noted, confirms that she was a real, not a bottle, red head.

Marval’s work was championed by three gallerists at the turn of the 20th century, Ambroise Vuillard, who bought the paintings Marval exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1901, Berthe Weill and Eugène Drout.

Figure 18. Berthe Weill, art gallery owner

Berthe Weill (Figure 18) is very interesting and not only because she was the only female gallerist at the turn of the 20th century but because she championed women artists like Marval and Suzanne Valadon and it was from her gallery that both Picasso and Matisse made their first Parisian sales. That she became a gallerist at all is to be marveled at (pun intended). She was a sickly child born into a poor Jewish working class family of 7 children. Like her siblings, she was apprenticed young. Luckily for her, she was apprenticed to a print merchant and got her start that way. Somehow, business remained precarious and when they could, the artists whose careers she championed, left her for more financially stable galleries. In the late ‘30s, with antisemitism rising and World War II looming, she was forced to close her gallery. impoverished after the war, the artists she had championed at the beginning held an auction of donated work, the proceeds from which enabled her to live the rest of her life in comfort.

Eugène Druet on the advice of the sculptor Rodin, began to collect and show young, contemporary artists, among them Marval, whose work he first exhibited in 1912.

Figure 19. Odalisque au Miroir, Jacqueline Marval, 1911

I think many of you have heard of the 1913 Armory Show which brought European contemporary art to New York for the first time. Marval’s painting L’Odalisque au Miroir of 1911, a riff on a theme she was exploring, was in the exhibition. (Figure 19) Florine Stettheimer’s nude self portrait followed by several years, maybe Marval’s work inspired Florine’s own.

Figure 20. Foyer de la Danse. Edgar Degas, 1872

In 1913, Marval was selected to decorate the Foyer de la Danse of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. We have already discussed the bas reliefs that the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle created for the Théâtre, copies of which are at the Musée Bourdelle. Marval was very mindful of her decoration’s placement. We are familiar with paintings by Degas backstage at the ballet, one of which is indeed called Foyer de la Danse. (Figure 20) Degas’ paintings often depict old men, sprawled on chairs, scrutinizing the young dancers, deciding which one of these delicate young women they will pay to keep them company. Marval chose as her theme, Daphnis et Chloé, (Figure 21, Figure 22) an early 20th century ballet based upon a 2nd century Greek tale. The subject is the trials and tribulations of two young shepherds, two young lovers. The reference is appropriate on two counts, the most obvious is to the ballet itself, created by Maurice Ravel which had its world premier in Paris in 1912. The less obvious, to us, but maybe not to the ballerinas, is the celebration of two young people in love, not a young girl victimized by a lecherous old man because of her impoverished circumstances.

Figure 21. Daphnis et Chloé, Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris, Jacqueline Marval, 1915

Figure 22. Daphnis et Chloé, Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Paris, Jacqueline Marval, 1915

Figure 23. Danseuse, Jacqueline Marval, 1909

There is a painting called La Danseuse (Figure 23) that I saw at lunch, to which I am particularly drawn. Dressed in the same delicious dress as Chloe, white with blue taches or spots, this young woman seems more athlete than dancer, a sprinter getting ready to take off as soon as the starting whistle is blown. I adore her intensity, her athleticism. She just seems so strong, so independent, so self assured.

Figure 24. Denise Poiret in a jupe-culotte, Georges Lepape, 1911

In the 1920s Marval began to visit the sea-side resort of Biarritz with her friends, among whom was the couturier Paul Poiret, as much a rebel from conventions as Marval was. It was Poiret who liberated the female body from both the corset and the oppressive tight waistline. He also created the ‘jupe-culotte,’ (Figure 24) a skirt-pants combination which may have outraged men, the pope included, but enabled women to ride bicycles and horses, as well as play tennis, with ease. When Poiret was hot, he was hot but when Coco Chanel came along, he was not. She continued to simplify women’s clothes, but the real difference was in the quality of workmanship. His clothes were best seen from a distance, hers were even better close up.

Figure 25. Plage Rose, Jacqueline Marval, 1923

Figure 26. Chinaman’s Beach, Ken Done, 1985

Marval’s scenes of the beach at Biarritz remind me of the contemporary Australian painter Ken Done. (Figure 25, Figure 26) The sky, the sea, the swarms of people, everything seems to undulate and pulsate with heat in both artists’ paintings. As Camille Roux Dit Buisson writes, about this period of Marval’s career: Marval went from painting the nude to painting the bather, heralding a change in French society, the moment when taking seaside holidays in France became all the rage. (Figure 27) And won’t it be fun when, vaccination passport in hand, you can start taking your holidays in France again, too.

The owners of the Gallery, Raphaël Roux Dit Buisson and his charming daughter, Camille Roux Dit Buisson (yes, Raphaël is charming, too) who graciously welcomed me to their home and their gallery, have a wonderful website where you can learn more about Jacqueline Marval, (www.Jacqueline-Marval.com) I am planning on taking you there when you can return. I’m sure you will love it as much as I do.

Meet Mme Marval, A Feminist Fauve

A Bull’s Eye Every time

Fit for a King (or a Queen)

Musée Musings