Marthe Donas (26 October 1885 – 31 January 1967) was a Belgian abstract and

cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

painter and is recognized as one of the leading figures of Modernism. Donas worked under the

androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often r ...

pseudonyms Tour d'Onasky, Tour Donas and M. Donas.

Biography

Early life

Born on 26 October 1885, Marthe Gabrielle Donas grew up in Antwerp as the daughter of a prosperous French-speaking bourgeois family. On her own initiative, she enrolled at the

Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp () is an art academy located in Antwerp, Belgium. It is one of the oldest of its kind in Europe. It was founded in 1663 by David Teniers the Younger, painter to the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and Don Juan of ...

at the age of seventeen. Her authoritarian father, however, did not support her wish to become a painter, preventing her from going to drawing class and exhibitions and would not allow her being in contact with other students and artists in Antwerp. Donas' paintings at that time were confined to still lifes and portraits of her family and friend circle. Against her father's will, she re-enrolled at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in 1912 following the course for young ladies with

Frans Van Kuyck Frans Pieter Lodewijk van Kuyck (9 June 1852, Antwerp - 31 May 1915, Antwerp) was a Belgian painter and graphic artist. He is also known for helping to establish Mother's Day in Belgium. Life and career He came from a family of artists. His f ...

Beginning of her artistic career in Dublin

After the breakout of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the German invasion of Belgium, 4 August 1914, the Donas family fled to

Goes The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

, Netherlands. Soon after, Donas freed herself from the family pressure and moved with one of her sisters to Dublin. There, she continued perfecting her drawing, painting and print-making skills and followed a course in stained-glass art. At the end of 1915, she was taken on at

Sarah Purser Sarah Henrietta Purser RHA (22 March 1848 – 7 August 1943) was an Irish artist mainly noted for her portraiture. She was the first woman to become a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. She also founded and financially supported An T� ...

´s stained-glass art studio An Tur Gloine where she produced three large stained-glass windows for churches as well as some smaller works. Due to the political events surrounding the

Easter Rising The Easter Rising (), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the aim of establishing an ind ...

in Dublin in 1916, she once again was forced to leave her place of residence. While her sister sailed back to the family to the Netherlands, Marthe decided not to return to her old life but to head for Paris instead, at the time the artistic centre of Europe.

Arrival in Paris

She settled in

Montparnasse Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. It is split betwee ...

at the end of 1916 and rented a studio in a large complex at 9 Rue Campagne Première. It was in Paris where she got into touch with the latest artistic movements. She continued her education at the Académies de la Grande Chaumière and Ranson. In January 1917 she discovered the work of

André Lhote André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes, and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Early life and education Lhote was bor ...

and

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, which left a deep impression on her. Donas soon became Lhote's pupil and started to adapt a cubist style in her own paintings.

With Archipenko in Nice

Due to her precarious financial situation Donas accepted the offer of an aristocratic lady to join her to the South of France in exchange for painting lessons. In spring 1917 she moved to

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculpture, sculptor, and graphic designer, graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles o ...

. They developed not only an intensive collaboration in their artistic work but also an intimate personal relationship. Donas' paintings and drawings of that time show how skilfully she incorporated elements of Archipenko's sculpto-paintings in a highly personal way. She then worked fully in a cubist manner, further developing her remarkable sense of colour under Archipenko's influence. Her most recurring motive was the female figure and still lives. By including concave and convex forms, alternating between round, angular and blurred elements, she introduced energy and investigated movement in her paintings which became more and more abstract. Already in Paris, she had experimented with

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

techniques, but in Nice regularly incorporated materials like cement, sand, different kinds of fabric and lace, sandpaper and wallpapers into her work.

International career

At the end of the First World War, Donas returned to Paris and rented a studio at a studio complex at 26 Rue de Départ. The studio was previously occupied by

Diego Riviera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...

. Also,

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

rented a studio in the same complex at that time. Donas joined the artist group ''

Section d'Or The Section d'Or ("Golden Section"), also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs, the group held regular meetings ...

'' which was revived after the war under the leading of Archipenko. Through this international group of connections and with the help of Archipenko who intensely promoted Donas, she was able to have her work published in several leading art magazines of the time: the Dutch ''

De Stijl De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...

'' and the

dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

ist magazine ''Mécano'', the German ''

Der Sturm ''Der Sturm'' () was a German List of avant-garde magazines, avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 a ...

'', the Italian ''Noi'' and the Belgian ''Sélection''. In these years, Donas started publishing her work under the pseudonyms 'Tour d'Onasky', 'M. Donas' and later exclusively 'Tour Donas' which disguised her gender. Especially cubist and abstract art were seen as too intellectual and rational for women. For a female artists to work under a male pseudonym secured considerably more respect within the art world, a higher chance of promotion and thus of commissions and sales. The network she had built up in Nice and Paris made one of her first participations in a mayor exhibition possible: The ''Exhibition of French Art 1914–19'' in London compiled by

Léopold Zborowski Léopold Zborowski (1889–1932) was a Polish poet, writer and art dealer. Biography He was born in Zaleszczyki, in what was then Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria of Austria-Hungary (now a part of Ukraine), to a Jewish family. Zborowski and h ...

in which she was present with seven of her paintings alongside work by

Othon Friesz Achille-Émile Othon Friesz (6 February 1879 – 10 January 1949), who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement. Biography Othon Friesz was born in Le Havre, the son of a long line of ...

Vlaminck Maurice de Vlaminck (; 4 April 1876 - 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauvism, Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 190 ...

, Derain,

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, ...

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

, Modigliani, Valadon, Kisling,

Léger Leger or Léger may refer to: People * Léger (surname), a list of people with the surname Léger or Leger * Leodegar or Leger (615-679), Chalcedonian saint, martyr and Bishop of Autun * Leger Djime (born 1987), Chadian footballer * Leger Douz ...

, Lhote, Utrillo and

Dufy Dufy is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jean Dufy (1888–1964), French painter * Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French painter associated with the Fauvist movement. He gained recogn ...

. Archipenko continued promoting Donas' work internationally which lead to solo-exhibitions in Librairie Kundig in Geneva in December 1919 and the famous avant-garde gallery ''Der Sturm'' of

Herwarth Walden Herwarth Walden (actual name Georg Lewin; 16 September 1879 – 31 October 1941) was a German expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines. He is broadly acknowledged as one of the most important discoverers and promoters of German av ...

in Berlin in Summer 1920 which would turn out to be the most important exhibitions in her entire career. Herwarth Walden most likely purchased many of her work which meant being recognized by one of the most influential dealers of that period. She also exhibited her work together with among other

Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

, Férat, Villon,

Natalia Goncharova Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova (, ; 3 July 188117 October 1962) was a Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Goncharova's lifelong partner was fellow Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Lariono ...

Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he play ...

, Irène Lagut, Archipenko and R. Duchamp in the Section d'Or-exhibitions in Paris in Galerie La Boétie and successively at different locations in the Netherlands organized by

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (; born Christian Emil Marie Küpper; 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch painter, writer, poet and architect. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He married three times. Personal life Theo van Do ...

with whom she had become close friends. Donas visited him and his wife Lena Milis in

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

during late spring 1920 to oversee the transportation of art works and to attend the opening in Rotterdam of the ''Section d'Or''-exhibition. After her stay in the Netherlands, she went to visit her parents in Antwerp aiming to improve her financial situation by painting portraits of Jewish family friends. Following other commissions, which she all painted in a very traditional style and though herself to be conventional, she went to London in the late summer of 1920. Trying to make contact with the London art scene, as recommended by Van Doesburg, she met up with among other the Sitwells, C.R.W. Nevison,

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American and British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1910. Early in his ...

and

Douglas Goldring Douglas Goldring (7 January 1887 – 9 April 1960) was an English writer and journalist.Glenn Hooper,''The Tourist's Gaze : travellers to Ireland, 1800–2000''. Cork University Press, Cork, Ireland, 2001. (pp. 171–5). Stanley J. Kunitz and ...

. Although little is known about the details, her relationship with Archipenko must have come to an end at this point. Her work, too, developed further abstract and in line with the purist ideas of Amédeé Ozenfant and

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...

with which she came in contact through the magazine ''L'Esprit Nouveau'' and through Van Doesburg and ''

.'' Donas returned to her studio in Paris in autumn 1920. For the first time, she exhibited her work in her home country in December 1920 in the gallery ''Sélection'' of André de Ridder and Paul-Gustave van Hecke in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. From December 1920 until January 1921, her work was included as part of the ''

'' group in an exhibition at the Palais électoral in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

. Organized by the Belgian artists Albert Daenens and the French sculptors Albert Gerbaud and Marcel Bourraine, the International Exhibition of Modern Art aimed to cover all new international artistic movements. Naturally, the exhibition was regarded as a very important event in contemporary art circuits and turned out to be an important networking event as well resulting in an exhibition of the

in Rome in 1922. Walden once again organized a big group exhibition at the Sturm gallery in January 1921 including twenty-four paintings of Donas and the work of

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

, Jaques Villon,

Louis Marcoussis Louis Marcoussis (born Ludwik Kazimierz Wladyslaw Markus or Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus; 1878 or 1883 – October 22, 1941) was a Polish-French avant-garde painter active primarily in Paris. Markus studied law in Warsaw before attending the Kr ...

Julius Evola Giulio Cesare Andrea "Julius" Evola (; 19 May 1898 – 11 June 1974) was an Italian far-right philosopher and writer. Evola regarded his values as Traditionalist conservatism, traditionalist, Aristocracy, aristocratic, War, martial and Empire, im ...

Sonia Delaunay Sonia Delaunay (; 14 November 1885 – 5 December 1979) was a French artist born to Jewish parents, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in the Russian Empire, now Ukraine, and was formally trained in Russia and Germany, be ...

and again in April 1921 with five of her paintings and among other work by

Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...

, Evola,

Fischer Fischer is a German occupational surname, meaning fisherman. The name Fischer is the fourth most common German surname. The English version is Fisher. People with the surname A * Abraham Fischer (1850–1913) South African public official * ...

and

Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

. Walden continued supporting Donas by frequently featuring her in his exhibitions and publications until at least September 1925. At one of these exhibitions, Donas work was certainly bought by American artist

Katherine Dreier Katherine Sophie Dreier (September 10, 1877 – March 29, 1952) was an American artist, lecturer, patron of the arts, and social reformer. Dreier developed an interest in art at a young age and was afforded the opportunity of studying art in the ...

. In January 1920, she had founded the '' Societé Anonyme'' in New York together with

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

and

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...

aiming to familiarize the American audience with the latest developments in European modern art. The '' Societé Anonyme'' showed Donas paintings and drawings alongside work by Campendonk, Klee, Schwitters, Molzahn and Stuckenberg in New York and later at a travelling group show at different other locations in the United States. Dreier continued to include Donas work in numerous group exhibitions until 1940. The ''Societé Anonyme''-collection, including Donas' work, has later been donated by Dreier to the

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

and are still kept at the Yale University Gallery in New Haven. In the meantime, Donas continued working in Paris until she fell severely ill in the summer of 1921. The lack of savings forced her to leave her studio in Paris and return to her parents in Antwerp. In Antwerp, she must have been in contact with the Belgian art scene around Jozef Peeters seeing she participated prominently with twelve of her latest paintings and a portfolio of

linocut Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of relief printing in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief printing, relief surface. A design i ...

s in a large-scale exhibition at El Bardo on Sint-Jacobsmarkt in Antwerp in January 1922 organized by Peeters in the framework of the Second Congress for Modern Art. By giving her exhibited paintings the title ''Composition'' with the Roman numerals I to VII, she clearly associated her work with that of the Belgian variant of international

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

'plastique pure' (Pure plasticism), distancing herself even more from the movements in Paris. By January 1922, she was back in Paris to marry Henri Franke, a philosophy student from a Belgian family whom she still knew from her childhood. In February, she got sick again and was diagnosed with a form of hepatitis which made the couple move to the Paris suburb

Fontenay-aux-Roses Fontenay-aux-Roses () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. In 1880, a girls school was opened in the town. It was one of the most prestigious of Paris and even of whole France in t ...

, a popular resort among artists. There, she continued drawing and painting and her work was featured in a number of exhibitions in Paris, Düsseldorf and Oslo in 1922/1923. Her paintings started developing away from the

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

towards a more figurative style. Due to her weak health however, Donas and Franke permanently moved back to Belgium in July 1923. They settled in

Ittre Ittre (; ; , ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. Since the fusion of the Belgian municipalities in 1977, the municipality is composed of three districts: Haut-Ittre, Ittre and Virginal-Samme. Ittr ...

, a small village in

Walloon Brabant Walloon Brabant ( ; ; ) is a province located in Belgium's French-speaking region of Wallonia. It borders on (clockwise from the North) the province of Flemish Brabant (Flemish Region) and the provinces of Liège, Namur and Hainaut. Walloon Br ...

where part of Franke's family lived already. Even though, her work appeared at several exhibitions in Brussels, Berlin and Paris, she was not very well known in Belgium and did not enjoy the fame she received in her years in Paris. The themes in her works became more traditional, she painted mainly still lives and landscapes, and she moved away completely from cubism and abstraction. In April 1926 however, the gallery ''A La Vierge Poupine'' of

Paul van Ostaijen Paul van Ostaijen (22 February 1896 – 18 March 1928) was a Belgian Dutch-language poet and writer. Nickname Van Ostaijen was born in Antwerp to Dutch father and Flemish mother. His nickname was ''Mister 1830'', derived from his habit of walk ...

and Geert Van Bruaene organized the first large-scale retrospective of Marthe Donas' oeuvre with seventy of her paintings. Through the renewal of her contacts in the avant-garde art scene in Belgium, Donas decided to move back into the city of Brussels at the beginning of 1927. Her work was admired by many of the Belgian artists though just a few knew about her cubist work at the beginning of the 1920s and she was rather seen as an up-and coming artist in Brussels. Again, it was her colour palette which drew most attention and which was seen as highly refined. Being inside this urban artistic milieu again and able to participate in a number of exhibitions in Brussels and in Paris with the artists' group ''L’Assault'', reinvigorated her artistic inspiration. In a softer palette this time, she picked up a neo-cubist style again and produced a great body of work in the year 1927.

Hiatus from painting and second career

The renewed contact with the French and Belgian art scene and her rediscovered artistic energy did not last long though. Disheartened, she stopped painting entirely for 20 years. There was little appreciation for modern art in Belgium, additionally she experienced some personal setbacks. Her parents died shortly after another in 1927 and 1929 and financial straits further made life difficult forcing her and her husband to seek refuge once more in Ittre. At the age of forty-five, Marthe Donas got pregnant and gave birth to her daughter Francine in January 1931. After having moved around again for some years with her husband in search for an income, they returned to Ittre at the outbreak of the Second World War in the year 1939. Donas was now fully occupied with the household of Chateau Bauthier and the upbringing of her daughter, which proved not to be easy at her age. Significantly, when her daughter turned sixteen and independent, she started painting again. Donas and Henri moved back the Brussels in 1948. Her paintings from that period expressed a sense of innocence and humour, Donas herself called it "romantic with a Cubist tenor", found appreciation in exhibitions in Brussels and Antwerp. Starting from 1954, her paintings became again more abstract and finally entirely non-figurative starting from 1958 drawing inspiration from pure intuition. Around that period, she came into contact with Dutch gallerist Maurits Bilcke who promoted her work extensively in the 1960s. From the United States, too, came interest in especially her early work after Katherine Dreier had donated the collection 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 ...

s collection to the Yale University's gallery. Also in Belgium, the interest grew into the pioneers of abstraction of the early 20th century. German art historian

Herta Wescher Herta Wescher (née Herta Kauert; 1899 – March 3, 1971) was a German art critic and art historian, who worked in France. She specialized in the study of modern art, and was an authority of collage art. Early life and education Herta Kauert wa ...

included her work in her book about collages. Due to this upcoming attention towards her Marthe Donas started composing her autobiography. In the following years, she was featured in a number of important exhibitions among them ''The First Abstract Artists in Belgium: Tribute to the Pioneers'' in 1959 in Antwerp, ''Salon de femmes peintres et sculpteurs'' at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, a big overview of solely her work in two rooms at the Palais de Beaux-Arts in Brussels, both in 1960, and an exhibition dedicated to the influence of Herwarth Walden and his gallery Der Sturm at the Nationalgallerie in Berlin in 1961 alongside

Archipenko Arkhypenko (), also transliterated as Arkhipenko, Archipenko, is a Ukrainian names, Ukrainian-language family name of patronymic derivation from the Slavic first name Arkhyp/Arkhip () derived from the Greek name Archippus The Belarusian-language ver ...

Delaunay Delaunay is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: People Arts * Catherine Delaunay (born 1969), French jazz clarinet player and composer * Charles Delaunay (1911–1988), French author and jazz expert * Constance Delaunay ( ...

, Goncharova, Jawlenksy,

Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright and teacher, best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expre ...

Macke Macke is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Andreas Macke (born 1962), German physicist *August Macke (1887–1914), German Expressionist painter *Kenneth Macke Kenneth Anthony Macke (16 December 1938 – 28 June 2008) was an Ame ...

Marc Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system ...

, Schwitters and Severini. Being included with these artists which have by then been acknowledged as the important avant-gardists of the 20th century, must have been especially gratifying for Donas. While her work finally was internationally recognized, her health was declining and again she had financial struggles. She was forced to sell the majority of her work to Maurits and Suzanne Bilcke. Subsequently, a major Donas exhibition at the Schleiper gallery in Brussels was organized by the Bilckes in October 1961. This exhibition was a big success and received a lot of attention internationally by art critics and fellow artists alike. Maurits Bilcke further promoted her work and made sure it was included in important collections. In the 1960s, her work was purchased by the ministry of Belgium, the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, the Francophone Section of the Ministry of Education and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She was happy that towards the end of her life, she was finally recognized as one of the great pioneers of the avant-garde. Marthe Donas died on 31 January 1967 in the company of her husband and her daughter in a nursing home in Audreignies, Belgium.

Exhibitions

* 1920: ''La Section d’Or'', Galerie La Boétie, Paris, 5 march 1920. * 2016: ''Donas. De Belgische avant-gardiste'', Museum voor Schoone Kunsten, Gent.

References

Biography

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Marthe Donas Museum

Marthe Donas Foundation

* https://www.coleccionrobertopolo.es/en/must-see-pieces/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Donas, Marthe Belgian collage artists Belgian abstract painters Belgian women collage artists 20th-century Belgian painters Belgian cubist artists 1885 births 1967 deaths Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) alumni Marthe Donas 20th-century Belgian women painters