Victorine by Drema Drudge: The Imagined Story of Manet’s Red-Haired Olympia

Posted on April 2, 2020 by americangirlsartclubinparis

Author Drema Drudge has a new novel about Victorine Meurent, one of Edouard Manet’s favorite models, the infamous star of Olympia at the Musée d’Orsay. You could say that this novel is Meurent’s coming out party. She steps out of each painting and comes alive with her own irrepressible voice.

I’m happy to say that I might have walked in the footsteps of Meurent in Paris. I once visited Manet’s studio near the Gare St. Lazare, at 4 rue St. Petersbourg. Manet painted here in the 1870s, including the period when Meurent posed for his painting The Railway (1873). Did Meurent walk through these very doors as she met with Manet?

American Girls Art Club in Paris founder Margie White, standing in front of 4 *rue St. Petersbourg*, the location of Manet’s studio in the 1870s.

A close up of the door to Manet’s studio. He is said to have rented the studio on the first floor because of the pain in his leg and his difficulty climbing stairs in the years before his death.

One of the many things I enjoyed about the novel Victorine was the way Drudge titled many of her chapters after a painting. So for example, Chapter One is Portrait of Victorine Meurent, Paris 1862, and features Victorine posing for Manet for the first time at his studio on rue St. Petersbourg. Another chapter is named after the painting on the cover (above), Mademoiselle V . . . in the Costume of an Espada.

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t read a book about art without Googling the paintings. Or better yet, go see them in person. So hang on for a little treat: here are some of the paintings that come up in the book, including – in great triumph over the many obstacles in her way – Meurent’s very own. I’ll tell you where you can find them so you can put it on your art museum bucket list.

Edouard Manet, *Portrait of Victorine Meurent* (1862), oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Edouard Manet, *Street Singer* (1862), oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Edouard Manet, *Luncheon on the Grass* (1863), oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay Paris.

Edouard Manet, *Olympia* (1863), Musée d’Orsay Paris. Read more about the scandal it created here.

Edouard Manet, *Young Lady in 1866*, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, you can listen to Met curators’ comments here.

Edouard Manet, *The Railway* (1873), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Note the double doors above Victorine’s head – experts think they might be the doors to Manet’s studio.

One thing kept coming back to me as I read this book. Meurent’s story is quite different from most of her contemporaries, whose family wealth supported them through their art schooling and beyond. Women whose stories are more familiar, like Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzales and Mary Cassatt. Meurent would have been jealous of the opportunities these women had, including the opportunity to befriend and begin painting with Manet. Manet and Meurent might have been friendly, but she was never his equal. She wasn’t of the same social class.

Nevertheless, you will see that after decades of modeling for others, Meurent finally enrolls in Académie Julian‘s evening classes for women (which for some reason cost twice as much as the same classes for men). It was there she learned the essentials of oil painting – things she could never learn from merely eavesdropping and observing as a model. We hear Meurent’s frustration with the way the privileged women in her classes take their opportunity for granted, wasting paint and supplies.

In fact, as I think about it, nearly all the American women artists who studied In Paris during the late 19th century enjoyed some level of wealth and comfort, for example: Ceclia Beaux, Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau , sisters Lydia, Rosina and Jane Emmett de Glehn, along with their cousin Ellen (“Bay”) Emmet Rand, Ellen Day Hale, Lilla Cabot Perry, Dora Wheeler, Mary Lawrence Tonetti, Anna Klumpke, Enid Yandell, Fanny van de Grift Osbourne – the list goes on. Some of these women may not have been wealthy but were fortunate in other ways: Abigail May Alcott Nieriker‘s sister Louisa May Alcott subsidized her travel and art studies from the sales of Little Women and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies obtained a three year scholarship from the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, where she had been the first female art instructor.

The stories of all of these women art students make fascinating reading, but their tales differ greatly from Meurent’s. They faced discrimination based on their sex, but in Meurent’s case you must factor in poverty and the social shaming that came with it. Parisians treated Meurent like a prostitute because she had dared to pose like one; Parisians spat and jeered at her in public after Manet exhibited Olympia at the Paris Salon. However, Meurent was fearless, something upper class women could not dare without damaging their reputation. Meurent went out to the cafés, bars and studios of Paris without a chaperone, and in that sense benefitted somewhat from the social network that male artists enjoyed. Don’t get me wrong – they didn’t treat her like an equal, more often than not, they were trying to make her their next mistress – but at least she wasn’t in a gilded prison like Berthe Morisot or Mary Cassatt.

Within one year after Meurent began her studies at the Académie Julian, she got a self-portrait accepted into the Paris Salon. She continued to exhibit there in various years from 1876-1904. You can see more of Meurent’s paintings on Drema Drudge’s website, but I’m not sure where to find them, except for this one, which can be seen in a small art museum in Colombes, France, on the outside of Paris near Argenteuil. Apparently, Meurent lived in the village of Colombes until her death in 1927. She outlived Manet by 44 years.

Victorine Meurent, Palm Sunday (1880s), Musée Municipal d’Art et d’Histoire de Colombes, Frances

For additional reading:

Paris Red by Maureen Gibbon

Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire by Eunice Lipton

The Parisian Sphinx, upcoming nonfiction by Summer Brennan (cover not final)

The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

Posted on July 29, 2016 by americangirlsartclubinparis

I’m thrilled to tell you about a new book featuring The American Girls Art Club in Paris. It’s called The Light of Paris, authored by Eleanor Brown, who also wrote the fun and quirky The Weird Sisters a few years back.

Whether you’re a longtime follower of this blog, or you’re interested the history of the Reid Hall in Paris, or maybe you’re just a fellow Francophile, then you’ll love reading about Margie, a young American débutante who defies her family’s traditional expectations to spend a Jazz-Age summer at the American Girls Club in Paris, writing in cafés, meeting avant-garde artists and working at The American Library in Paris.

My name is Margie too. How fun is that? It feels a little like reading one of those children’s books that you can have personalized with your child’s name.

I was like, “Go Margie Go!”

Margie’s story is told through the lens of her granddaughter Madeleine who finds Margie’s old diaries in a trunk in her mother’s house. The diaries reveal Margie’s secret life in Paris, inspiring Madeleine to rediscover her artistic talents and to pursue her own dreams.

The plot might be a bit predictable, but who doesn’t enjoy a story set in Paris? And especially, who wouldn’t love to visit the Left Bank scenes around the Rue de Chevreuse and The American Girls Art Club in Paris?

Here is a post I wrote during my own year abroad about the history of the American Girls Art Club in Paris, which includes some of my own photos to accompany the book. I’m posting a few more below. They may not be the best quality, but hey, I was there and it was cool. You get the idea.

Reid Center Courtyard (The former American Girls Art Club in Paris)

Street View, 4 rue de Chevreuse

There are more (and better quality) photos on the Reid Hall – Columbia Global Centers – Paris website. You can watch a video on their website too, which shows some fabulous historical photos and informs you about their current global initiative.

Isn’t it good to know that new generations of students and travelers get to have their own adventures in Paris, like those of Margie and other young women of the American Art Club?

The Rivals of Versailles: Sally Christie Interview

Posted on April 5, 2016 by americangirlsartclubinparis

I just finished The Rivals of Versailles by Sally Christie (as well as the first book in the Versailles series, The Sisters of Versailles) and I’ve just got to share them with you. My book club is going to love them. Who can resist historical fiction from the “other woman’s” point of view? I literally burned through both books and still feel like I’m sneaking through the secret halls and corridors of Versailles.

The Rivals of Versailles is about King Louis XV’s mistress Madame de Pompadour. When I lived in France, I heard a lot about her but never knew her story. I was surprised how much the French knew about her (so American of me — shocked at the lack of French shame about affairs and mistresses).

I enjoyed the book so much I reached out to Sally Christie and she was generous enough to answer my questions.

Margie: How much time did you spend researching in Versailles, and how did it inform your writing?

Sally: I’ve made two research trips to Versailles and both times spent about a week there, staying in the town of Versailles (the palace is literally in the town). The town is almost as interesting as the palace itself, and dates from the 17th century as well. Many of the high nobles that had apartments in the palace (a sign of great prestige) also had houses in town, for their overflow of servants, clothes and horses.

Those research trips were absolutely critical for capturing the sensory details and imagining how the sisters lived. Seeing the reality of their lives, standing at the same windows and looking out over the same gardens, walking through the stables and kennels and gardens made imagining the scenes of their lives so much easier.

Margie: If you were a tour guide at Versailles and in charge of an exciting new tour called “The Mistresses of Versailles Tour,” (sign me up!) where would you take us? Can we see any of the back staircases, hallways and little attic apartments in the book?

Sally: That tour already exists! I was fortunate on my first trip to be able to take a backstage tour that took us to the apartments of the Marquise de Pompadour (which were previously Marie Anne de Nesle’s apartment) and then also to the apartment of the Comtesse du Barry (Louis XV’s final mistress and the subject of my third book, The Enemies of Versailles).

Wow – it was simply amazing. The tour is very expensive and before doing it, I was skeptical that it would be worth it, but after I did it – no doubt. It was so fascinating to get out of the magnificent state rooms (which quite frankly I find rather boring and overwhelming) and leave the crowds behind. Take back staircases, walk along narrow corridors, experience the smaller, more intimate apartments and see some of the servants’ cubby holes that give a real sense of the “rats nest” that the majority of the palace was away from the public rooms.

The tour was arranged by the wonderful Deborah Anthony at http://www.frenchtravelboutique.com/

Now what I wish there was is a “Versailles Carte Blanche” tour which would allow you access to EVERYWHERE in the palace. Only such a small portion is open to visitors, and every time I go there I find myself looking longingly at the windows of all the other apartments that are off limits to the public, wondering what’s behind the scenes….

Margie: Where can we see artifacts from the Marquise’s era with Louis XV? I seem to recall seeing some Louis XV antiques with fish decorations on them, and now I wish I had known more at the time. Does the Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre have some?

Sally: Versailles is quite empty of furniture and is only furnished with pieces that can be authentically traced to the palace. The palace administration spends enormous amounts of money to acquire authentic pieces – think millions for a sofa! The Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre has several items of Madame de Pompadour’s, and of course many, many contemporary items from her era – she was hugely influential in the decorative arts and was a keen supporter.

I think it’s really interesting how timeless Pompadour’s 18th century interior design esthetic is. We would feel perfectly at home in it, and it is still a desirable “look” for a house: really the epitome of class, sophistication and elegance. The Musee Cognacq Jay and the Musee Jacquemart Andre are two excellent museums with lots of 18th century furniture and art. A day trip to the factory at Sevres is fascinating, and it has a great collection of pieces developed under Pompadour’s patronage. The Biblioteque Nationale has her engraved gem collection – it’s quite impressive and well worth a visit. If you’ve read The Rivals of Versailles, you’ll know the significance of the gem engraving for her and Louis!

—————————————————————————————————

Thank you so much, Sally for the interview! If you’d like to read more and see photos of the places and scenes in the book, be sure to visit Sally’s website, which is a treasure trove of information. Check out her fabulous photos here.

Thank you also to Emma of France Book Tours for arranging this blog tour. Such a treat to read the Rivals of Versailles before it was released. Lucky me!

Sally Christie, author of Sisters of Versailles

Paris Red: Manet and his Muse

Posted on May 31, 2015 by americangirlsartclubinparis

I’ve always wanted to know more about the woman behind one of my favorite paintings from the Musée d’Orsay, Olympia by Edouard Manet.

Edouard Manet, Olympia (1863), Musée d’Orsay

We might know the model’s name: Victorine Meurent, and we might recognize her as the redhead from some of Manet’s other famous paintings, including Le Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe (1863), Musée D’Orsay and The Railway (1874), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Edouard Manet, Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe (1863), Musée d’Orsay

Edouard Manet, The Railway (1874), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

But who was Victorine? What was her connection to Manet? What does her defiant, direct gaze tell us about her?

We might never know the true story about Victorine Meurent. For example, we apparently don’t know for sure how Manet and Victorine met. Was she already a model for Manet’s teacher, Thomas Couture? Some say they met on the street near her home at 17 rue Maître Albert, close to the Palais de Justice. Were they lovers, as her nude poses suggest, was she a prostitute, or was it a relationship of collaborators and fellow artists?

Few people know that Victorian Meurent studied painting on her own at the Académie Julian and exhibited her own paintings at the Paris Salon various years between 1876 and 1903. Quelle surprise, non? Only one painting by Victorine has survived (that we know of), a portrait that reveals a great deal of talent.

Victorine Meurent, Le Jour Des Rameaux (1880), Musée Municipal d’Art et Histoire de Columbes, France.

So who was she? How did Victorine get from posing for Olympia to painting her own Le Jour des Rameaux?

Lucky for us, mystery and ambiguity are the author’s playground. In Paris Red, Maureen Gibbon has imagined her very own Victorine as a brilliantly alive and psychologically complex character.

Gibbon’s Victorine is a hungry and lusty working class girl who meets Edouard Manet while she is sketching a white cat on a Paris street and wearing “the bottle green boots of a whore.” (One of my favorite images in the book.) They symbolize Victorine’s need, her hunger, her desire for color and beauty, no matter how raw.

Victorine and Manet fall into a tricky kind of love and she becomes his muse. Together, they create a revolution and a scandal in the art world.

Manet does not foresee a romantic future with Victorine. He is already living with Suzanne Leenhof and their son. (Interesting twist, in case you’ve never heard: some say Suzanne’s son was in fact Edouard’s father’s child. Suzanne had been hired as the Manet family piano teacher when Edoaurd was still a teenager, but that’s another story.) After Manet’s father’s death in 1862 and his marriage to Suzanne in 1863, Victorine becomes involved with another famous Paris painter, Alfred Stevens.

Paris Red is not just another story about how a famous artist exploits his model. You can see that Victorine is a collaborator, a partner and a student. She has agency and self-awareness. She studies Manet’s paintings and truly observes them. She learns about color theory and brush technique. She takes Manet’s leftover paint tubes and paints in her free time. But yet, she is desperate in her poverty and dependent on his money. There is a great deal of sex on the divan in the studio. Victorine is never clear whether the money he leaves for her is a modeling fee or a payment for something more unsavory. Does the money make her a whore, a model or a partner?

Whether or not Paris Red represents the “true story” about Victorine doesn’t matter. What matters is that Maureen Gibbon has created a Victorine who is a fully realized person with complicated motives and a gaze of her own. This is a woman who may attract the gaze of men, but who is so much more. I can’t wait to go back to the Musée D’Orsay to stare back into her eyes once again.

For further reading:

Alias Olympia: A Woman’s Search for Manet’s Notorious Model and Her Own Desire by Eunice Lipton

Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore ( and my prior review and blog post here.)

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation

Posted on March 3, 2015 by americangirlsartclubinparis

You really shouldn’t miss this multiple biography of six flappers from the 1920s (Josephine Baker, Talulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald and Tamara de Lempicka).

flappers

Each woman’s story is equally fascinating. Author Judith Mackrell gives us all the scoop, including tales of booze, drugs, adultery, abortions, bisexuality and more. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to pour a martini and put on some jazz. I’m already picturing a Flapper theme party for my book club.

But this book is more than a dishy exposé. Mackrell understands that the flappers represented much more than a new sense of 1920s style and glamour. The flappers were at the vanguard of an attempt to redefine 20th century womanhood. Their personal failures and challenges, viewed together and in full historical context, teach us that the history of the woman’s movement is truly a story of fits-and-starts, a seesaw of hard-fought change and regression. No generation of women illustrate this better than the flappers.

And of course, like most interesting stories about women in the late 19th and early 20th century, the story of the flappers takes you to Paris, where they became dancers, actresses, writers or painters. They frequented the nightclubs and cafés of Paris, including Bricktops, the Dome and the Rotunde, as well as the salons of famous women, such as Gertrude Stein and Natalie Barney.

Most interesting to me was the story of Tamara de Lempicka, the iconic art deco painter whose self-portrait appears on the cover of the book. (Have you read The Last Nude by Ellis Avery? It’s a terrific novel about Tamara de Lempicka and one of her models.) You can enjoy my two-part Last Nude Literary Tour here and here.

Tamara de Lempicka, Self-Portrait in a Green Bugatti, 1925 (Private Collection)

Tamara de Lempicka arrived in Paris in 1918 as a Russian refugee. She came to Paris after losing everything in the Russian revolution and reinvented herself as a professional painter.

Lempicka took only a year of formal instruction from Maurice Denis at the Académie Ransom at 7 rue Joseph Bara in the 6th arrondissement, just off of rue Notre Dame des Champs. Like most art students, she took her sketchbook to the Louvre in the afternoons. At first she rejected the modernist style of Cézanne, Picasso and the Dadaists, preferring the Renaissance masters. But soon she was drawn into the style of cubist André L’hote, an instructor at the Académie Notre Dame des Champs and later at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière. Lempicka studied with L’hote privately for a few months, long enough to absorb his powerful and charismatic portrait style. By 1922, after less than two years of study, Lempicka had three works accepted in the Salon d’Automne in Paris. By 1925, Lempicka had a solo show in Milan organized by Count Emanuele di Castelbarco.

Interestingly, from 1922-1924, Lempicka presented herself as a man in the catalogs for the Paris exhibitions. She was listed as “LEMPITZKY (Tamara de) Born in Warsaw, Polish (French masculine form)” [delempicka.org].

Lempicka promoted herself with a ferocious sense of ambition, understanding that commercially lucrative portrait commissions would come as much from her talent as her own personal style and connections. She lived a chic and erotic bisexual life, which is exactly what she conveyed in her portraits.

Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait of the Duchess of Valmy (1924), Oil on canvas, private collection

Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait of the Duchess of La Salle (1925), oil on canvas, private collection.

Tamara de Lempicka, La Belle Rafaela (1927), oil on canvas, private collection

Judith Mackrell follows Lempicka’s rise through the 1920s and and her subsequent fall in the 1930s. As Mackrell explains:

[T]he forces of fashion and history that had swept her to eminence were changing course in the early 1930s, and while she was still much talked about in public, in private she felt that she had failed to catch the pulse of the new decade.

The rising political tensions in Europe, a new wave of modern art, Lempicka’s dated sense of glamour and lack of youth all combined to Lempicka’s decline after 1935. She remarried and moved to America, where she had a difficult time marketing herself as well as she had in the Paris of the 1920s. She tried living in Beverly Hills, then the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and finally Houston, where her daughter Kizette had settled with her husband and two daughters. Lempicka found Houston “uncivilized” and mundane.

After Lempicka’s bold life in Paris in the 1920s, can you blame her?

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell: Highly recommended

For Further Reading:

The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (A novel about Tamara de Lempicka and one of her models)

Camille Claudel: Rodin’s Lover

Posted on February 10, 2015 by americangirlsartclubinparis

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Heather Webb’s new book Rodin’s Lover, the story of Camille Claudel, one of Auguste Rodin’s most promising students.

I first learned about her art and her tumultuous love affair with Auguste Rodin when a friend recommended that I read Naked Came I by David Weiss (1970).

But then, during my year in Paris, I got to frequent the Musée Rodin, where I could see her work with my own eyes. Haven’t been? You gotta go, although I’m not sure which, if any, of Claudel’s works are on display since the extensive museum renovations. Check the website before you go.

Musée Rodin, 79 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France

Musée Rodin, view from the south garden

The view from an upstairs window of Musée Rodin onto the south garden

The grounds of the Musée Rodin are like an urban sanctuary in the middle of Paris. There’s even an outdoor café where you can grab lunch.

The old Hotel Biron was a dilapidated mess when Rodin first rented out four south-facing, ground-floor rooms opening onto the terrace, to use as his studios.

The old Hotel Biron was a dilapidated mess when in 1908, Rodin first rented out four south-facing, ground-floor rooms to be used as studios. He shared the space with other artists, including Matisse, Isadora Duncan and By 1911, Rodin had taken over the entire building. (Source: Musée Rodin exhibit)

At the time of my visit, Camille Claudel’s work was on display in one of the upstairs rooms of the museum. I would hope and fully expect that her work will return as soon as renovations are complete. The fact that her work is displayed alongside his is itself remarkable. After her love affair with Rodin came to an end (it ended badly – just read Webb’s book) Camille Claudel suffered from financial, professional and mental health issues. Her father supported her, but after his death in 1913, her mother and her brother Paul had her institutionalized, first in Ville-Évrard in Neuilly-sur-Marne, and then, from 1914 until her death in 1943, in the Montdevergues Asylum, at Montfavet near Avignon. Her family rarely visited and refused to bring her home despite the recommendations of the treating physicians.

Before his death in 1917, Rodin continued to provide some financial and artistic support to Claudel, agreeing to reserve exhibition space for Claudel’s works when Hotel Biron was being turned into the Musée Rodin. In 1952, Claudel’s brother Paul finally donated four major works by his sister to the museum. The museum continues to acquire her available works, recently acquiring Young Girl with a Sheaf. Its website features an educational background file on the relationship between Rodin and Claudel, with photos of her best-known sculptures.

Camille Claudel’s sculpture reveals astonishing talent and emotion. Rodin’s influence is unmistakeable in her early work, less so in her later, smaller work.

Camille Claudel, Bust of Auguste Rodin (Bronze, 1892), Musée Rodin

Camille Claudel, Clotho (1893), Plaster. Donated by Paul Claudel in 1952. Musée Rodin

Camille Claudel, The Age of Maturity (1899), Bronze. Donated by Paul Claudel in 1952. This is a partial view of the sculpture, featuring a pleading woman, often said to be Camille begging for Rodin, who is being torn away by his long-time companion Rose. Claudel herself would reject such an autobiographical interpretation, and instead claim that it is intended to symbolize the grass of youth versus age.

Camille Claudel, The Wave (1897), Onyx and bronze. Musée Rodin, purchased in 1995.

Camille Claudel, The Gossips (1895), Musée Rodin. Donated by Rodin in 1916.

Camille Claudel, The Gossips (1895), plaster. Musée Rodin. Donated by Rodin in 1916. Note Claude’s signature in the lower left corner.

And if this small sampling of Claudel’s work isn’t enough for you, there’s more on the way. In March, 2017, a new Musée Camille Claudel will be opening in Nogent-Sur-Seine, the a small town southeast of Paris where the Claudel family lived when Camille was young. Over 77 pieces of Claudel’s art will be on display, thanks to a large 2008 acquisition by Reine-Marie Paris, the granddaughter of Paul Claudel. Here is a link to a video from French television about the plans for the museum. Finally, here is a link to the website of Reine-Marie Paris which includes photographs of even more of Camille Claudel’s sculptures.

Maison de Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine, France.

Rendering of the future Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur-Seine

I can’t wait to hear more about the completion of the new museum. It will definitely be worth a drive out to the countryside southeast of Paris.

In the meantime, we will have to content ourselves with Heather Webb’s new book, which breathes life into the passionate, turbulent life of Camille Claudel. Book clubs will find much to discuss, above and beyond the historical interest in a female artist of the late 19th century.

For instance, what do you think drove Camille Claudel to mental illness, if that’s what it was? Was she paranoid about Rodin, or did he really manipulate and compete with her? Which injured her more, the lack of support from her mother and her brother Paul, or a sexist society that made success in the arts so extraordinarily difficult for women? Would Camille Claudel have been better off if she’d never entangled herself with Rodin? Finally, do you see any parallels between Camille Claudel’s struggles and those of 20th and 21st century women?

I’m definitely recommending it to my own book club. Bring some wine!

Rodin’s Lover by Heather Webb: Highly Recommended.

For further enjoyment: Don’t miss the 1988 Oscar-nominated film, Camille Claudel, starring Isabelle Adjani and Gérard Depardieu, available on Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Portrait of a Woman in White

Posted on December 12, 2014 by americangirlsartclubinparis

Portrait of a Woman in White by Susan Winkler is the story of a family of wealthy Jewish art collectors in Paris that begins before World War II. That’s all I need to say, and you can imagine the rest. You already know what tragedy will befall them even if they don’t. We know they will be forced to flee France, or worse, and that their art will be looted.

But it’s what we don’t know that makes us keep turning the page. Who will survive and how? What becomes of the family’s most precious possession, a Matisse portrait of their mother? And finally, what will become of the young lovers who are separated at the border of France and Spain?

By now most of us know about The Monuments Men, the story of how the Nazis systematically looted the art of Paris. We’ve seen the images of Hermann Göring marching into the Jeu de Paume in Paris to claim more trophies for his art collection under the watchful eye of Rose Valland. But to hear the story from the point of view of one young woman, Lili Rosenswig, brings it all to life and makes the tragedy that more real.

First, Lili witnesses her mother posing for Matisse in his studio on Boulevard Montparnasse in a lovely white satin gown. The portrait becomes a prized family possession, and hangs from the wall of the Rosenswig’s salon in a gilded wood frame. As the Rosenswigs prepare to flee France, they hide the Matisse at their relative’s country villa, planning to see it again soon. Instead, the family is betrayed and the portrait is seized by the Nazis along with most of their other valuables, and taken to the Jeu de Paume.

As Winkler explains in the book:

The Jeu de Paume was a serene pavilion set in the northwest corner of the Tuileries Garden, opposite the Louvre, in the center of Paris. Napoleon had built it to house tennis courts, and its high white walls had served most recently as an impressionist museum. But when the Nazis arrived in Paris and began seizing private Jewish collections, the initial storage rooms in the nearby German embassy were soon filled to overflowing. Urgently, four hundred cases of work were moved to the Jeu de Paume, which then became the official repository and sorting center for all the art that the Nazis confiscated in France.

Rose Valland is the lone French member who remained on the staff of the Jeu de Paume after the Germans requisitioned it, and managed to keep a secret record of all of the stolen art that came in and out of the museum.

The plaque on the side of the Jeu de Paume commemorating Rose Valland’s heroism on behalf of French art. It explains that from the fall of 1940 until the summer of 1944, the building was requisitioned by occupying German forces storing art stolen from the French. Rose Valland took great risks to record the location of the stolen art, which resulted in the restitution of over 45,000 works.

Rose Valland (on the right) and Edith Standen posing with art being returned to France in 1946. Source: Archives of American Art, http://www.aaa.si/edu

In Winkler’s book, Valland watches as Göring marches into the Jeu de Paume with his entourage of German officers and curators. The Matisse portrait catches Goring’s eye and leaves him breathless. Lili’s mother looks just like Göring’s deceased wife Carin. Göring claims the painting for his personal collection in his hunting estate near Berlin, named Carinhall after his first wife.

Goring and Hitler admire a painting. Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4427013/Looted-Hermann-Goering-paintings-catalogued.html

Goring and the SS at Carinhall. Source: Wikipedia

Göring and the SS at Carinhall. Source: Wikipedia

The painting has its own journey, just as Lili Rosenswig and her family do. What became of the thousands of pieces artwork that Göring had installed in Carinhall by the war’s end? As bombs fell near Berlin, Göring was loading trucks and trains with his 1,375 paintings, 250 sculptures, 108 tapestries, 75 stained-glass windows and 175 objet’s d’art, sending them to secret locations in various mountain villages, including a mine shaft in Altausee, Austria and Bertchtesgaden in Bavaria.

Matisse, Woman in Blue in Front of a Fireplace (1937)

The story of A Woman in White is even more interesting because a very similar art mystery was just resolved earlier this year. A real-life Matisse painting called Woman in Blue in Front of a Fireplace was the property of Paris art dealer Paul Rosenberg, was looted by the Nazis and sold to an unscrupulous French art dealer. A Norwegian art collector bought it in 1950, unaware of its provenance, and proudly installed it in the Onie Onsted Art Museum near Oslo, Norway. In 2012, Rosenberg heirs asserted a claim against the museum, and in March, 2014, after its own investigation, the museum agreed to give the $20 million painting back to its original owners, in accordance with the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, to which Norway is a signatory. To read more, click here.

The road to reunite pre-war owners of Nazi looted art is long and complicated. And so it is for Lili and the Portrait of the Woman in White. Will Lili and her family every see their beloved painting again? You’ll just have to read Susan Winkler’s book to find out.

For further reading:

A previous post reviewing the book Pictures at an Exhibition by Sarah Houghteling

My prior post about The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

Seven Letters From Paris

Posted on October 9, 2014 by americangirlsartclubinparis

Who doesn’t wonder about a long-lost love? Especially when life has got you down, and you’re wondering where and how your life took such a wrong turn. . . .

You pull out some old love letters, and you wonder: will they make me cringe, or was he really the dreamboat I thought he was?

And then. . . because we can, we Google him.

This is how Samantha Vérant‘s incredibly romantic Seven Letters from Paris (Sourcebooks, October 2014) begins.

Five years later, and Samantha is married (after a fairytale wedding in California) and living with her adorable Jean-Luc and his two children in southern France. She’s still stumbling over her French conjugations (who isn’t?) and coming into her own as a writer, wife and stepmom. It’s tailor-made for a romantic comedy starring, oh, who knows, Reese Witherspoon? Julia Roberts? Just saying.

Samantha and I had big plans to meet up in southern France in September. I was eager to meet somebody who felt like my younger, crazier little sister. After all, I felt like I knew her after I just finished her memoir. I even stole some slippers from my hotel to give her and Jean-Luc as a belated wedding gift!

But toward the end of an entire month in France, you can lose track of what day it is (hmmm, too many wine tastings?). Samantha and I missed our planned connection in Montauban, but that didn’t stop us from sharing a happy hour together on Google Hang-Out after I trained back to Paris. I had a good bottle of Bordeaux to finish before I had to return to Chicago, but thanks to Samantha, I didn’t have to drink alone!

I’m here to tell you that Samantha is the real deal. She’s funny and honest and brave, just like in the book. She’d be a great author for your book club to Skype with, if you can figure out the time difference!

So for all those book clubs out there looking for a really fun conversation starter: pick Seven Letters From Paris for your next book club, and trust me, you’ll have late-into-the-night chats about your own long-lost loves. (Hmmm, whatever happened to that French-Canadian firefighter you met on a ski trip in college?)

I’m happily married, but what the heck. Maybe even I’ll start Googling. . . .

Seven Letters From Paris: Highly recommended

Madame Picasso in Paris

Posted on October 3, 2014 by americangirlsartclubinparis

I heard about Anne Girard’s new novel Madame Picasso (Mira Books, August 2014) and made sure it was packed in my carry-on bag when I boarded my recent plane to Paris. The cover is gorgeous and the book is that luxurious kind of trade paperback that feels soft and good in your hands.

Madame Picasso is the story of Pablo Picasso’s love affair with Eva Gouel from 1911 until her tragic death in 1915. Picasso had many other lovers, muses and wives over the course of his long life (1881-1973), but Eva Gouel can show us a side of the young Picasso we might never have known.

I began marking up the pages and taking notes of all the scenes from the book, eager to walk in Pablo and Eva’s footsteps through Paris. It’s a walk that will take you from one end of Paris to the other, from the top of Montmartre all the way across the Seine to the center of Montparnasse. I walked it all on a beautiful fall day in September. When I was done, I was exhausted, inspired and very thirsty.

Madame Picasso begins at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Eva Gouel arrives from her family’s home in the outskirts of Paris and is lucky and talented enough to get a job as a seamstress. Eva is well on her way to becoming a costume designer, but fate interrupts. Pablo Picasso comes to the Moulin Rouge one night and notices the pretty girl working behind the scenes.

The Moulin Rouge in Paris where Eva first meets Picasso

When Picasso and Eva first meet, he is already involved with his long-term mistress Fernande Olivier. He has a studio in the run-down Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartrre. The studios got their famous nickname from the artist Max Jacob, who thought they were so rickety that they rocked like a houseboat on the Seine. Once Picasso had some success, he moved out, but still kept a studio there to keep up with his artist friends and have a little privacy with his models.

There is a little piece left of Bateau-Lavoir that you can still see today. It’s located near the top of Montmartre in place Goudreau.

The plaque on what is left of the old Bateau-Lavoir located at No. 13 rue Ravignan at Place Emile Goudeau. A fire destroyed most of the building in the 1970s, leaving only the façade.

Bateau-Lavoir, Montmartre. Eva and Pablo spend their first night together here after meeting at the Moulin Rouge. Here’s a passage from the book: “Picasso squeezed Eva’s hand when they finally arrived at the ramshackle building in the center of a sloping square, lush with rustling chestnut trees. She knew this shabby old place, with its sagging roof of filthy glass skylights, was a haven to impoverished painters, models and thieves.”

The historical marker at Bateau-Lavoir tells the story of the old piano factory that was turned into art studios in 1889. This was where Picasso spent the end of his blue period, as well as his rose period with his lover Fernande.

rue Ravignan is a lovely spot near the top of the hill of Montmartre.

rue Ravignan is now a lovely little street near the top of the hill of Montmartre.

Place Emile Goudeau from below the steps, in front of La Relais de la Butte, a great place to catch a café or a beer in the sun.

Picasso had been living in Paris since 1901, and by 1911, he was sufficiently on the rise that he and his lover Fernande Olivier could afford a nice apartment on avenue Clichy. To get there from the Bateau-Lavoir, all you have to do is keep walking down the butte of Montmartre, across the bridge that spans over the Montmartre Cemetery, down to place de Clichy and past the Blanche Métro stop. It’s now a bustling, somewhat seedy area, but back in their day, it was considered very nice.

11 boulevard de Clichy, the upscale apartment where Picasso lived with Fernande Olivier when he met Eva.

11 boulevard de Clichy, which was then an upscale apartment where Picasso lived with Fernande Olivier. In the novel, Fernande says to Eva: “It’s such a grand place we’ve got now. . . . Did you know Pablo rented me an apartment on the boulevard de Clichy? Everyone who is anyone lives there.”

Picasso lives near place de Clichy, not far from the Moulin Rouge and the

In 1911, Picasso lived near place de Clichy, not far from the Moulin Rouge where he met Eva.

Pablo Picasso in his boulevard Clichy apartment/studio,

Pablo Picasso in his boulevard Clichy apartment he shared with Fernande Olivier.

In the novel, a mutual friend introduces Eva Gouel to Fernande Olivier at the Dome in Montparnasse. To Eva’s surprise, Fernande calls herself “Madame Picasso” although Picasso and Fernande are not married. Eva is drawn into Fernande’s social circle and tries to avoid a love triangle with Picasso. But of course she can’t.

Le Dome in Montparnasse where Eva meets Fernande Olivier. “The Dome was the best of the four cafés on the corner of the bustling boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail. It was shaded by an elegant bower of horse chestnut trees and had a butter-yellow awning, Le Dome was a lively spot, harboring a tangle of closely packed tables with chairs spilling out onto the sidewalk. All of it was full of such life, young Parisians chattering endlessly about politics, art and literature.”

You can almost picture Fernande and Eva chatting over un verde du vin at these café tables outside Le Dome.

You can almost picture Fernande and Eva chatting over un verre du vin at these café tables outside Le Dome.

Eva, Picasso and Fernande meet again at Gertrude Stein’s Saturday night salon at 27 rue de Fleurus on the Left Bank. Eva and Picasso find that their initial attraction is undeniable, despite his relationship with Fernande. They make plans to meet again.

Gertrude Stein’s apartment still stands at 27 rue de Fleurus not far from boulevard Raspail in Montparnasse. There is a plaque that says, “Gertrude Stein lived here with her brother Leo Stein, then with Alice B. Toklas, she received there a number of artists and writers from 1903 to 1938.”

Gertrude Stein’s apartment still stands at 27 rue de Fleurus. It’s just a short walk from Luxembourg Gardens or boulevard Raspail.

The attraction between Eva and Picasso deepens, but Eva is shocked when Picasso is arrested in connection with the theft of the Mona Lisa. This set of events presents a nice little historical touchpoint for the story. Most people have heard about the shocking theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, but to see unfold from Eva’s point of view is really interesting. Picasso is eventually cleared of the charges and Eva surrenders to his persistent charms.

What follows are beautiful scenes in which Picasso paints Eva in his Bateau-Lavoir studio. Anne Girard imagines the chemistry and energy that buzzed through Picasso’s studio, and bring this famous cubist painting of Eva (“Ma Jolie”) to life.

Pablo Picasso, “Ma Jolie” (Woman with a Zither or Guitar) 1911-12, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Pablo Picasso, Ma Jolie (1913-14), Indianapolis Museum of Art

Eva and Pablo spend a golden summer together in the south of France. They stop in Cérete where Pablo meets up with Geroges Braque, and paints side-by-side with him in a large borrowed villa. Then Eva and Pablo move on to Avignon, where they run into Henri Matisse and his wife Amélie. They finally find a quiet villa in Sourges, where they spend the rest of their summer in inspired seclusion.

Eva and Pablo return to Paris as a committed couple and live at 242 boulevard Raspail. Eventually Eva finds them a beautiful well-lighted studio apartment at 5 rue Schoelcher, directly across from the Montparnasse Cemetery, where they lived from 1913 to 1915.

The view down the lovely rue Schoelcher as it runs alongside the Montparnasse Cemetery. Pablo and Eva’s apartment actually overlooked the cemetery.

Picasso and Eva’s home at 5 rue Schoelcher, Paris. The most beautiful building on the block, still.

A photograph of Picasso in his rue Schoelcher studio 1915-16.

Of course, everyone knows that Eva only survived until 1915. Picasso could barely step foot in the rue Schoelcher studio again.

It was hard to leave Eva behind, but I couldn’t finish my Madame Picasso Walk through Paris unless I stopped at what might be Picasso’s most famous studio on rue Des Grand Augustins in the 6th arrondissement. It was where Picasso lived from 1936 to 1955, and where painted he Guernica in 1937.

After a long day walking the streets of Paris in Eva and Pablo’s shoes, you are no doubt in need of liquid reinforcement at a sidewalk café. I recommend you stop in for a glass of wine at Café La Palette on rue de Seine in the 6th, not too far away from Picasso’s studio on rue des Grand Augustins. In fact, the café boasts that Picasso used to frequent there back in the day.

And while you’re there, you can think of Picasso and Cézanne and Braque and all the other artists who drank there, but also? Make a toast to Eva, and to Anne Girard, for bringing Eva out of the shadows of history.

Café La Palette, at the corner of rue de Seine and rue Jacques-Callot, Paris

Madame Picasso by Anne Girard: Highly recommended

For Further Reading: Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Lee Miller: The Beautiful American

Posted on September 17, 2014 by americangirlsartclubinparis

The Beautiful American by Jeanne Mackin

Jeanne Mackin‘s new historical novel (NAL 2014) offers us a captivating story of love, friendship and betrayal during the heady days of 1920s Paris, based in part on the true story of the famous American model and photographer Lee Miller and her lover, the celebrated French photographer Man Ray.

The story is told by a fictional character, Nora Tours, who grew up with Lee Miller in Poughkeepsie, New York. They meet again in Paris, and Nora tells us the whole madly tragic story. And much of it is true.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Lee Miller, but chances are you don’t know her whole story. All I really knew about her before I read the book was that somehow, she was not only the iconic 1920s face on the cover of Vogue Magazine, but also, the famous female combat photographer who was photographed in Hitler’s bathtub.

Who wouldn’t want to read more about a woman like that?

Her story begins, of all places, in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York. Lee and Nora are acquaintances but only because Nora’s father is the Miller family gardener. Lee endures a devastating childhood event and Nora knows her secret.

Lee moves to New York where she is discovered by Condé Nast (he actually saved her from stepping into the path of a truck on a busy city street). Miller becomes a famous model and her face becomes the iconic image of 1920s beauty.

In fact, this image is so iconic, I spotted it just yesterday at a Brocantes Fair on rue Cler just the other day:

An image of Lee Miller at a brocantes fair on rue Cler in Paris.

A copy of Lee Miller’s famous Vogue cover at a brocantes fair on rue Cler in Paris.

Lee Miller flees to Paris, as so many Americans did in the 20s, and brazenly introduces herself to the famous photographer Man Ray. The embark on an intense love affair and creative partnership. In the meantime, Nora and her boyfriend, an amateur photographer, are also lured to Paris, which by that time had become “the center of gravity” in the art world.

The two couples – Lee and Man, Nora and Jamie – meet at the Jockey Club on rue Rabelais, and Mackin captures the moment nicely:

A moment, frozen in my memory like a photograph: a winter night on rue Rabelais outside the Jockey Club, where two girls from Poughkeepsie bumped into each other, each clinging to her beau’s arm; the four of us in the falling snow, music from the club wafting out with the smell of tobacco, perfume, whiskey; each of us looking in a different direction . . . .

From there, the story goes on, advancing through the magical years of Lee Miller’s partnership with Man Ray, their glamorous life in Paris alongside such legends as Pablo and Olga Picasso, to Lee and Man’s tortured break-up, and finally, into Lee Miller’s own career as a professional photographer.

Nora suffers a devastating betrayal and escapes on her own, without Jamie, to southern France. Nora comes into her own as she pursues an interesting career in the perfume industry and she waits out World War II . Lee Miller becomes famous as a female World War II photographer.

The Beautiful American is a well-crafted novel, a pleasure to read and hard to put down. Nora Tours might be make-believe, but she feels just as real and interesting as the real-life characters, in fact, maybe even more so. Lee Miller is a difficult subject. She was brave and daring but also heartless and damaged. But good Nora? She suffers and she endures an unbearable loss. In the end – with the surprising help from her old friend Lee Miller, whose horrible secret Nora never reveals, Nora prevails.

And who wouldn’t want to read about a woman like that?

The Beautiful American Literary Tour of Montparnasse:

Rue Boissonade, the short little street where Nora and Jamie lived in Montparnasse, just two blocks away from Lee Miller and May Ray.

A look down Rue Boissonade and possibly, the convent that Nora and Jamie live near in The Beautiful American.

Hotel Istria, 29 rue Campagne Premiere, a famous haunt of the Surrealists. Man Ray’s studio was next door, but he was known to rent a room in the hotel so he could have more privacy with his mistress Kiki of Montparnasse. Kiki would leave Man Ray and Lee Miller took up with him a year later.

The plaque at Hotel Istria, noting such visitors as DuChamp, Man Ray and Kiki of Montparnasse.

The plaque at Hotel Istria, noting such visitors as Marcel DuChamp, Man Ray, Kiki of Montparnasse and Rainer Maria Rilke.

30 rue Campagne Premier, Man Ray's home and studio. He first moved here in 1926. He lived here with Lee Miller for three years. The architecture of the building is still beautiful after all these years.

31 bis rue Campagne Premier, Man Ray’s home and studio. He first moved here in 1926. He lived here with Lee Miller for three years. The architecture of this distinctive looking building is still beautiful after all these years. It was designed by André Arfvidson in 1911 and featured ceramic tiles by Alexandre Bigot.

The view of 31 bis rue Campagne Premiere from the Raspail Metro stop.

The Passage d'Enfer (Hell's Passage), just around the corner and behind Rue Campagne Premiere. Here you can see the back side of Man Ray's home and studio.

The Passage d’Enfer (Hell’s Passage), just around the corner and behind Rue Campagne Premiere. From here you can see the back side of Man Ray’s home and studio.

Man Ray’s gravesite in the Montparnasse Cemetery. Maps are available at the entrance of the cemetery to help you find it. I might never have found it if I hadn’t seen a photo online so I knew what to look for. It’s right in the middle of Section 7.

“Unconcerned but not indifferent.”

The Beautiful American by Jeane Mackin: Highly recommended

For Further Reading:

You should really go to the Lee Miller Archives, a site maintained by her son Antony Penrose. That’s where you can see many of Lee Miller’s original photographs, which are all subject to strict copyright. That’s where you can find the photo of Lee Miller in Hitler’s Bathtub, photos of Pablo Picasso, as well as her wartime photographs.

Also recommended: The Golden Moments of Paris by John Baxter, which contains an excellent Montparnasse Walk and Map at the end of the book.

American Girls Art Club In Paris. . . and Beyond

Exploring The World In The Footsteps of The Artists and Writers Who Came Before

Category Archives: Paris Books

Victorine by Drema Drudge: The Imagined Story of Manet’s Red-Haired Olympia

The Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown

The Rivals of Versailles: Sally Christie Interview

Paris Red: Manet and his Muse

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation

Camille Claudel: Rodin’s Lover

Portrait of a Woman in White

Seven Letters From Paris

Madame Picasso in Paris

Lee Miller: The Beautiful American

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