Marcelle Cahn (March 1, 1895 - September 20, 1981) was a French painter and one of the members of Abstraction-Création. She was born in a Jewish family of

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

Marcelle CAHN : de l'expressionisme au constructivisme
and died at 86, in

Neuilly-sur-Seine Neuilly-sur-Seine (; 'Neuilly-on-Seine'), also known simply as Neuilly, is an urban Communes of France, commune in the Hauts-de-Seine Departments of France, department just west of Paris in France. Immediately adjacent to the city, north of the ...

. The French contemporary artist

Richard Conte Nicholas Peter Conte (March 24, 1910 – April 15, 1975), known professionally as Richard Conte, was an American actor. He was known for his starring roles in films noir and crime dramas during the 1940s and 1950s, including '' Call Northside ...

made an homage to Marcelle Cahn in 1995 at the Nicole Ferry Art Gallery (Paris).

Biography

Cahn began studying art as a child, taking painting and drawing classes. She also learned to play the violin and became familiar with the music of

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

. In 1915, Cahn, along with her mother and brother, moved to Berlin. In Berlin, she studied under the German painters Lovis Corinth and Eugene Spiro. Cahn was already familiar with the ''

Sturm und Drang (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto-Romanticism, Romantic movement in German literature and Music of Germany, music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity an ...

'' movement before her arrival in Berlin, and she further studied it once there. From 1920, she spent time in Paris, where she first experimented with geometrical drawings and briefly studied under

Édouard Vuillard Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas ...

and Othon Friesz. Cahn later met Léonce Rosenberg, who introduced her to

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

, with whom she began to work. She also worked with Amédee Ozenfant, one of the founders of Purism, during this time. In addition to Paris, she also spent time in Strasbourg, and Zurich (where she studied the works of Kant). In 1926, her artwork was shown in Paris and at an exhibition of the

Société Anonyme The abbreviation S.A. or SA designates a type of limited company in certain countries, most of which have a Romance languages, Romance language as their official language and operate a derivative of the 1804, Napoleonic, civil law (legal syste ...

in New York. Cahn also presented her work annually at the exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendantes from 1927 to 1930. In 1929, Cahn was invited to join the

Cercle et Carré Cercle is French for ''circle''. It can refer to: * Circle (administrative division) * Cercle (French colonial), an administrative unit of the French Overseas Empire * Cercle (Mali), the Malian administrative unit ** The specific Cercles of Mal ...

group of French abstract artists. During the Second World War, Cahn and her mother hid in a monastery in Toulouse; she returned to Paris in 1947. From 1948, she began showing her abstract artwork at the exhibition of the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, and she began making collages in 1952. Cahn later began making collages on photos, "tableaux-spheres," and "spatial mobiles." In 1980, Cahn donated 200 collages to the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Cahn's work was included in the 2021 exhibition '' Women in Abstraction'' at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

Biography

References

Further reading