Émilie Charmy
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Émilie Charmy (; April 2, 1878 â€“ June 7, 1974) was an artist in France's early avant-garde. She worked closely with Fauve artists like
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
, and was active in exhibiting her artworks in Paris, particularly with Berthe Weill. She had become an artist against the norms for French women in her day and became a well-regarded artist. She painted still lifes, landscapes, portraits, and figure paintings. Unusually for a woman at the time, she made a number of paintings of nude women in poses of sexual abandon. Charmy's initial works were Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. As her career evolved, she was influenced by Fauvism and the
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
movements.


Early life

Émilie Espérance Barret was born on April 2, 1878, in Saint-Etienne, France.Delia Gaze.
Dictionary of Women Artists: Artists, J-Z
'. Taylor & Francis; January 1997. . p. 379–380.
''Émilie Charmy Special Exhibition: August 23, 2013 – February 2, 2014.''
The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. p, 3. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
She grew up in a
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
family; her grandfather was Bishop of
Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
and her father owned an iron foundry. She had two older brothers, one whom died of appendicitis.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. pp. 21, 23.
Orphaned when she was 15, she and her older brother Jean Barret then lived with relatives in
Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
. Émilie had a talent for both art and music as a child.''Biography''.
Emile Charmy website. Retrieved March 20, 2014.


Education

Émilie received a
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
educational training at a Catholic private school, and qualified to become a teacher, which if a woman were to have a career was limited to education.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 23.
When living at Lyon, she refused teaching jobs in the late 1890s and went to study and work in the studio of Jacques Martin. This was a critical moment in the further development of her career. Martin was involved with a number of other Lyon artists who became influential in Émilie's artistic development, including Louis Carrand and François Vernay who had a local reputation for a unique approach to flower painting. During this time she assumed the name Émilie Charmy as her
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
.


Career


Overview

When women were shunned from the French art world, and most women regarded painting as a hobby, Charmy was consumed by her work and was entirely financially dependent on her art. For her, "painting was an obsession which dominated many other aspects of her life".Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 85.
Charmy primarily painted women in domestic or bourgeois settings, as well as pictures of flowers and still-life.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 25.
Her flower paintings and still-life paintings were very marketable because they were considered decorative, and were sought after by the middle class.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 52.
In regards to Charmy's nude paintings, Gill Perry proposes that Charmy is intentionally trying to restrict the viewer from the intimate scenes that she depicts. French novelist Roland Dorgelès described Charmy as "a great free painter; beyond influences and without method, she creates her own separate kingdom where the flights of her sensibility rule alone." There is a great sense of
abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...
in her images, with varying opinions by
art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...
s. Her bold use of color and her unapologetic brushstrokes have been deemed as "appropriating...a 'masculine' language of art production", according to her contemporaries.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 55.
The most famous quote came from Roland Dorgelès: It is Charmy's resistance to traditional
gender roles A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gende ...
that makes her unusual for her time.Christopher Green.
Art in France, 1900–1940
'. Yale University Press; 2000. . p. 169.
For her career and depiction of nude women in a period in which that was unusual for women, she epitomized the New Woman of the 19th century and early 20th century. In terms of the business side of her career, Charmy refused to sign contracts with art dealers and gallery owners, save for one unsuccessful contract with the dealer Pétridès in the early 1930s.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 89.


Early career

In the 1890s, Charmy began making Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings of subjects that ranged from prostitutes and brothels to scenes of middle-class family life. For instance, she made orient-influenced ''Girl with a Fan'' , a morphine addict in ''Woman in an Armchair'' , a group of nude prostitutes in ''La Salon'', cultured women in ''Card Players'' and ''Interior in Saint-Etienne'' . In 1902 or 1903, Charmy and her brother left Lyon for Saint-Cloud, near Paris. Charmy exhibited her works in a number of galleries, but they were not exhibited with her male contemporary artists, and therefore were not assessed in the same professional manner as paintings made by male modernist painters. Her first documented show was at the "
Salon des Indépendants Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name i ...
" in 1904, and it is likely that it was through this show that she befriended other Fauve artists, like
Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
, Charles Camoin, and Albert Marquet. In 1905 she exhibited two still-life paintings titled ''Dahlias'' and ''Fruit'', at the Salon d'Automne.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 46.
Which were seen and appreciated by Berthe Weill, who from then on promoted her work and became a good friend.''Émilie Charmy Special Exhibition: August 23, 2013 – February 2, 2014.''
The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. p, 4. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
In 1906, she showed 5 flower paintings and one
still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...
titled ''Prunes'', also at the Salon d'Automne.


Fauvism

Influenced by other artists at the time such as Matisse, she integrated Fauvism techniques into her paintings, as seen in ''Woman in a Japanese Dressing Gown'' (1907). As a result of "experiments with colour, thickly applied paint and seemingly crude brushwork she produced a series of bold and technically innovative paintings". Concerning ''Woman in a Japanese Dressing Gown'', Charmy "adopts a theme which also appears in works by Matisse, Camoin, Derain, and Marquet from 1905, shortly after Matisse's wife had purchased a Japanese kimono and posed in it for members of the group". Their compositions feature the perfect and conventional image of femininity, with all of its decorative, and oriental/ primitive references. Charmy's depiction is a significant contrast, as her subject "despite her oriental dressing gown, is represented as the modern woman without the ornamental or coiffured hair. She assumes an almost hieratic standing pose, in the center of the canvas, and stares out somewhat disconcertingly, directly at the viewer. She seems to stand out rigidly against her domestic interior, a rigidity which is emphasized by the use of bright colors outlined in dark brushwork." Other paintings from this period include the landscapes ''Piana, Corsica'' (1906), ''L'Estaque'' and ''Corsican Landscape'' made when she traveled to the coast of the French Mediterranean and Corsica with Matisse and his friends. An unconventional aspect of her style was to leave parts of her canvas unpainted in this series of paintings, a technique used by her male Fauve counterparts. Charmy established a studio in Paris at 54 Rue de Bourgogne in 1908. She moved there permanently in 1910 and remained there for the rest of her life.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 151.
Paintings that she made of Corsica and the French Mediterranean were exhibited at Eugène Druet's gallery in 1911 in Paris. In 1912, her first major solo exhibition was held at the Galerie Clovis Sagot. It is listed as having a minimum of forty oil paintings and twenty-five watercolors. Charmy is remembered in the United States as being one of the artists who exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, where she exhibited four works, ''Roses'', ''Paysage'', ''Soir'', and ''Ajaccio''. This exhibition is also where Arthur Jerome Eddy purchased ''L'Estaque'', and he "praised the picture or its arbitrary, abstract colors and bold, decorative composition in his 1914 ''Cubists and Post Impressionism''." Fellow artist and her lover, George Bouche, had a home in scenic Marnat, which is believed to be the subject of her paintings ''The Path toward the House'' and ''Landscape'', made between 1913 and 1915. The works represented a shift to more intimate pictures made with vigorous brushstrokes and a palette of medium-light to dark tones.''Émilie Charmy Special Exhibition: August 23, 2013 – February 2, 2014.''
The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. p. 6. Retrieved March 20, 2014.


School of Paris

In the 1910s Bertha Weill began exhibiting her work. Her style evolved again during that decade, this time to that of the
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
. Her work became increasingly respected by art critics, such as Louis Vauxcelle who in 1921 described her as "one of the most remarkable woman rtistsof our time". Recognizing the difference between Charmy's work and that of the stereotypically refined feminine artist, writer Roland Dorgelès said the same year that she "sees like a woman and paints like a man". A solo exhibition of her work was held in 1919 at the Galerie André Pesson. Also in 1919, Charmy makes the acquaintance of the Count Etienne de Jouvencel, who becomes a patron of her work. An exhibition of Charmy's work was held at the Galerie Œuvres d’Art in 1921.


Feminine Art

Women artists were generally banned from art studios or academies during sessions with live models, so many women painted bourgeois life by default. Yet, Charmy's work exhibits an interest in painting female models and prostitutes, including expression of women's sexuality. Such images of women are common among male artists such as
Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French people, French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Print ...
, but were rare among women artists. Most women artists were interested in painting an idyllic view of women and their children. Despite Charmy's interest in using female models as subjects for her paintings, she avoided the mother-and-child theme that was becoming increasingly popular, especially with contemporary artists like Mary Cassatt. Author and art historian Matthew Affron said of Charmy's choice of subject matter that "the key issues in Charmy's putative naturalism – the
anthropocentrism Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From a ...
, the revival of historical genres, and the modernist conception of brushwork as the sign of artistic expression – came together most vividly in her painting of the nude. Uniformly female, the nudes appear in simple interior settings. Frequently their poses evoke academic and salon-style precedents, including many variations on the single figure standing or seated, prone or supine, or reclined laterally either toward or away from the viewer. Charmy often worked with studio models, and she also was interested in the subgenre of the nude portrait. Some of these images bear such a strong resemblance to the artist that they are considered self-depictions." There have been many speculations as to why Charmy chose such a controversial subject matter. One interpretation, is that "in adopting a contradictory viewing position (i.e. that of a woman viewing the female sexuality) and a modern technique, she has produced an ambiguous version of a popular contemporary theme... Charmy has appropriated and reworked a 'male gaze' removing some of the erotic pleasure involved in the part of the viewing subject." In 1921, Charmy had a
solo exhibition A solo show or solo exhibition is an art exhibition, exhibition of the work of only one artist. Rather than a group of artists who collaborate to form an exhibition. The artwork may be paintings, drawings, etchings, collage, sculpture, or photogr ...
at the Galerie d'Oeuvres d'Art, and showed paintings of flowers, women, and female nudes. The show caused quite a stir in the Parisian art scene, and sparked a number of critical issues concerning "feminine" art.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 98.
The show was organized by Count de Jouvencel, who had discovered her at Berthe Weill's gallery in 1919.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 96.
Around 1922, Charmy met Colette, whom she befriended. Colette, at that time at the height of her popularity, wrote the introductory text for the catalog of a major exhibition of twenty pictures by Charmy, held in 1922. The same year, Charmy participated in another major exhibition at the Styles Gallery, on the theme of the "Female Nude", which included paintings by Ingres, Delacroix,
Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...
, Manet, Renoir, Rouault and Matisse, and a catalog prefaced by Louis Vauxcelles.


Later years

In 1926, another major solo exhibition of Charmy's work was held at the Galerie Barbazanges. She exhibited her works less frequently in the 1920s and 1930s, but had a number of patrons and collectors who supported her work. Charmy made paintings when she had been at her villa at Ablon-sur-Seine, including two made between 1926 and 1930, ''View of the Seine at Ablon'', which is at the Musée de Grenoble, and ''Banks of the Seine at Ablon,'' at Galerie Michel Descours in Lyon. She also painted still lifes, nudes and self-portraits. In the 1930s, Charmy was a member and exhibited her works at Femmes Artistes Modernes. After the war, Charmy exhibited less often than she had at the height of her career, but she continued to paint into her 90s.


Awards

Charmy was first brought to the attention of
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
's
Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
awards when she was introduced, through Eli-Joseph Bois ('' Petit Parisien'' Director), to several political figures, including Édouard Daladier, Aristide Briand, and
Louise Weiss Louise Weiss (25 January 1893 – 26 May 1983) was a French author, journalist, feminist, and European Union, European politician. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 Nobel Peace Prize, 1971 and for the Nobel Prize in Literatur ...
. By decree on 13 January 1926, Charmy received a Legion of honour Knighthood, which was later upgraded to the rank of Officer (decree: 5 August 1938).


Personal life

In 1912 she met the painter George Bouche, and they had a son, Edmond, in 1915. Charmy and Bouche married in 1935. Edmond, like Charmy, was placed in the care of paid nurses and carers until the age of fourteen. Although this was acceptable during Charmy's childhood, this practice was becoming increasingly rare as traditional roles of
motherhood A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case ...
were becoming more popular. In one biography, Edmond notes that "while some mothers glory in their offspring, Charmy hid hers jealously. This newly born knew neither the disorder of the studio nor the smell of paint."Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 84.
Charmy was almost scorned by her art dealer, Berthe Weill, because she viewed Charmy's relationship with her son Edmond as distant and unnatural.Perry, Gill.
Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde
'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1995. p. 83.
After World War I, Charmy and Bouche had a villa in Ablon-sur-Seine, as well as the studio-apartment in Paris. Her husband died in 1941 and during World War II, she and her son Edmond lived in Marnat in "isolated circumstances". After the war she returned to Paris, but many of the people that she knew in the art community were no longer there.''Émilie Charmy Special Exhibition: August 23, 2013 – February 2, 2014.''
The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. p. 8. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
She died in 1974 in Paris.


Notes


References


Further reading

* Valadon, Marval, Charmy, Agutte: ''Les Femmes Peintres et L'avant-garde, 1900–1930''. Paris: Somogy editions d'Art, Musee Paul-Dini, VilleGranche-sur-Saône, 2006.


External links

* Emilie Charmy estate.
Archives Émilie Charmy
'. 123, Rue Vieille-du-Temple 75003 Paris France {{DEFAULTSORT:Charmy, Emilie French Post-impressionist painters 20th-century French painters Fauvism 1878 births 1974 deaths 20th-century French printmakers French women printmakers 20th-century French women painters