©Tamara de Lempicka Estate, LLC / Adagp, Paris, 2022 - photo Association of Friends of the Petit Palais, Geneva / Studio Monique Bernaz, Geneva
Pioneers, artists in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties , this is the subject of the 100% girl power exhibition not to be missed under any circumstances.
Let's travel a century ago to the Paris of the Roaring Twenties , capital of modernity, art and sexual freedom, between Montmartre , the Latin Quarter and Montparnasse .
The pioneers are women artists, activists or not, who think outside the box and live like men: free. Greatly forgotten by history , their visibility is restricted, as well as this decade of freedom when their role is passed over in silence at the end of the war.
From suffragettes to flappers in bathing suits, the exhibition goes around these women who marked the era between big parties, champ' galore and rhinestone heels.
Avant-garde female artists
Much more avant-garde than it seems, the great women artists offered a vision of the revolutionary body from the 1920s, far from the clichés of the housewife that we would find after the Second World War.
Like the writer Colette , who has no trouble accepting her bisexuality, we find all these artists like the singer Suzy Solidor in the background in the exhibition, an LGBTQ+ icon still today for her texts . without complex where she assumes a sexual ambivalence in a context that was not very favorable at the time.
Naked scenes do you want some here, the particularity being that these paintings of female nudes are made by women in the manner of modern odalisques, as on Les Deux Amies by the great star Tamara de Lempicka . At the height of Cubism , Mela Muter stirred consciences with his Nu Cubiste , in line with Courbet 's Origin of the World (1866).
The boy, grandmother of non-binary heroines?
Impossible to miss the flapper girl , also known as the boy . Displaying an ultra-chic and relaxed silhouette, at the dawn of the diffusion of sportswear, these elegant women are characterized by a touch of masculinity : a long tie here, a bow tie slipped on a skirt suit there...
At night, she turns into a glittery bird with Josephine Baker who ultimately embodies this trend, as evidenced by the videos of her famous show which has not aged a bit.
Short slicked-back hair, flamboyant lipstick and a cigarette in their mouths, they are the icons of their generation, dare ole-ole extra-marital adventures like Marie Laurencin and Nicole Groult , who claim economic emancipation, but also the ability to live from his art and merging artistic genres, as evidenced by his poetic Women with a Dove (1919).
Art and fashion taken to their peaks
In this highly socialist Paris, exchanges between art and fashion are at their peak. Without limits, artistic professions leave their fields and attempt amazing creations at the crossroads of genres. Going further than Jacques Doucet , Worth or Paul Poiret , it is now up to women to put themselves on the stage.
We obviously find Coco Chanel , on a painting signed Marie Laurencin from 1923.
Her role as a patron of artists is often forgotten, but she was one of the first to reverse the roles. Starting from nothing, then maintained by Etienne Balsan then Boy Capel , she will be from the end of the 1910s the one who will maintain male artists (of whom she is often the mistress) such as Diaghilev , Cocteau , Pierre Reverdy or Picasso .
Another anti-conventional of the time: Sonia Delaunay , who assumes her multifaceted aspect. A first at the time: his work results from research between art and fashion where color and movement are the common principles at the origin of his Simultaneous Dresses . Her highly graphic creations, such as Bathing Suits (circa 1928), are aimed at the active and modern woman.
Women of Power in Paris… and Elsewhere
Highlight of the show: Gertrude Stein , the great lady of the art market, an unparalleled collector who announces the beginnings of the great contemporary galleries with her apartment-gallery where the greatest meet ( Picasso , Hemingway , Matisse , Fitzgerald ... ).
We leave the capital of lights for a dedication to the women of the world who painted Elsewhere, at a time still marked by colonialism. The sublime Hungarian-Indian visual artist Amrita Sher-Gil offers a realistic and non-fantasized representation of women from far away, like her Self-portrait as a Tahitian (1934).
Another demonstration of genius, the Brazilian Tarsila Do Amaral invites dreams and the imagination through hyper-colored compositions such as La famille (1925) and its stunning landscape settings.
Pioneers, artists in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, at the Luxembourg Museum, 19 rue Vaugirard, Paris 6th. Open every day from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., open late on Mondays until 10 p.m. Admission €13, reduced price €9. Online booking .
Also discover: Palais Galliera exhibits the parade tribute to Alber Elbaz and the most beautiful museums of Paris celebrate Yves Saint Laurent .
credits for Tamara de Lempicka's visual: © Tamara de Lempicka Estate, LLC / Adagp, Paris, 2022 / photo François Fernandez
credits for the visual with the three paintings: © Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva / Studio Monique Bernaz, Geneva © Kiran Nadar Museum of Art © Adagp, Paris, 2022 / photo Alberto Ricci, Paris.
