It was a brief exhibition, to be sure; five days in March, 1914 from the 2nd to the 7th. But it took place at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, ground zero of avant-garde art in the Paris of its day. The Bernheim brothers had published the first book about Paul Cezanne in 1908.The three featured artists, Janine Aghion (no dates), Madeleine Bunoust (1885-1974), and Juliette Roche (1884-1982), were all young women. 
The dizzying confection of color and pattern (top, left) was printed in the (now) rare portfolio The Essence and Mode of the Day in 1920 by La Belle Edition, Paris.
The dizzying confection of color and pattern (top, left) was printed in the (now) rare portfolio The Essence and Mode of the Day in 1920 by La Belle Edition, Paris.
The striking portrait of a Sudanese Woman was painted by Madeleine Bunoust and is now in the collection of the Musee de Quai Branly.
The other pictures are the work of Juliette Roche, whose good fortune was to have a painter husband, Albert Gleizes, with whom she set up a foundation that preserves her artwork. Strollers in Los Ramblas was painted in Barcelona; the Nightclub Dancers in Brooklyn. Roche, who made experiments in Dada in the 1920s, also did portraits, such as the Woman with the Little White Dog and Self-Portrait. Roche was all painted by her friend, Marie Laurencin.
For more, visit http://www.fondationgleizes.com/ andhttp://www.bernheim-jeune.com/.
11 comments:
Great! Superb! The lady with the dog, the ladies with the fans, the dancing couples - all fantastic. It's official: I've run out of adjectives for your finds. - Jeanne
Jeanne, you give me too much credit, I think. These artists did their work before we were born. How different would our idea of art be if we had been introduced to them in the ordinary course of education? And yes, they are wonderful. I haven't seen much of Aghion's work - this one is more emphatic than usual. On this evidence, Bunoust was a fine and sensitive portraitist.
Roche used stylized lines and patterns that tend toward abstraction, but the effects never seem static to me. The dancing couple makes Brooklyn bounce!
I think they may just be dancing to Ella Fitzgerald scat singing!
Now there's a whole new subject! What was the popular music in 1919? I haven't a clue, but you make me curious.
Ella was born in 1917, so too early for this painting; however, in Frankfurt a/M, the Weimar era had begun and American Jazz, the Charleston, and the Shimmy (known as the "Skandaltanz") were all starting to make a splash in the big cities. By early 1921, even Germans in the towns were dancing. My Great-Grandmama Anna told me once that had she not already been married with 2 children, she would have loved to have gone to a dance club to Shimmy at the time.
Janine Aghion and Madeleine Bunoust were both writers too.
The Juliette Roche self portrait reminds me a little of Bernard Buffet.
Thank you for that information. There is a book from the 1913 exhibition, but it is only in rare book collections of libraries in a few places, so I couldn't get it. Just the stray article here and there.
Rouchswalwe, I like the idea of the Shimmy being called a scandalous dance. So was the waltz, I believe.
The waltz, too ~ really? Hmm. I think the comment that was deleted was this one about the Weimar period starting in 1919 in Germany. At the time Operetta was all the rage, but soon American Jazz, the Charleston, and that "Skandaltanz" the Shimmy was being danced in the cities (all became quite popular by 1921 according to my Great-Grandmama, who always lamented the fact that she was married with 2 children then and thus missed out on the dancing!) Ella, it seems, wasn't born until 1917, so the folks in the picture must have dancing scandalously! What fun!
What would these three women think, to have their art suddenly noticed and celebrated after all this time? They would be happy, I hope, if a tad regretful that they were denied their due by conservatism, fate, and war. Lovely post, Jane. And yes, the French took to jazz very fast, and stuck with it - people like Miles Davis were amazed when they visited France to be treated like superstars.
Neil, their works are so varied it seems they were grouped together simply because of gender. Aghion's work appears to be commercially-oriented, Bunoust's seems very serious and Roche is the most experimental. The musical names that come to mind for the time are bandleaders James Reece Europe and W. C. Handy and pianist James P. Johnson (love his "Blueberry Rhyme"). My favorite jazz movie is French - Bertand Tavernier's "Round Midnight." If only Dexter Gordon had won the Best Actor Oscar he was nominated for.
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