The Enigmatic Secrets of a 1920s Painter: Unveiling Sapphic Symbols in Her Portraits

Fondation Foujita/Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris/Christie's/Bridgeman Images/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

A portrait of Marie Laurencin by Man Ray, 1925.

Man Ray/Artists Rights Society, NY/ADAGP, Paris/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

The series Untold Art History explores little-known narratives in art, shining a light on pioneering artists and uncovering fresh insights into influential artworks that challenge our understanding of them.

Marie Laurencin's ethereal paintings have lived two lives over the last century. Painted in soft pinks and grays, the slender, sensual figures of the French artist were often seen as flirtatious and shallow, despite her success during her lifetime. However, Laurencin's use of enigmatic symbolism and intimate gestures, and her near exclusion of men in her work, point to something much more intricate: the artist's hidden, queer world, veiled in hyperfemininity.

The current exhibition at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, "Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris," highlights the artist, whose work is seldom displayed in the US. She was deeply misunderstood during the 1910s, overshadowed by her peers such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque who spearheaded the dominant Cubist movement.

According to Simonetta Fraquelli, one of the curators of the exhibition, the female artist was often perceived as an accessory to the major male figures she worked alongside. "She was an outlier. Her unique style didn't resemble anyone else's," Fraquelli observed, highlighting the difficulty art historians faced in categorizing her within established artistic movements.

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Stage curtain design for the ballet "Les biches" (The Does), from 1923.

The influence of Cubism on Laurencin's work can be seen in her use of flat, fragmented planes, but she departed from the movement after escaping Paris during World War I for Spain. It was there that her distinctive style started to take shape, as noted by Cindy Kang, curator at the Barnes. Laurencin's art took on a soft, ethereal quality, influenced by ballet and decorative arts. Her time in Spain, where she encountered the work of Francisco Goya, may have contributed to the moody shadows and the haunting gazes of her figures, adding depth to her otherwise airy scenes.

Paintings devoid of men

Laurencin began her artistic pursuits before World War I by studying drawing and porcelain painting. She eventually attended the Académie Humbert in Paris, which, at that time, allowed women to enroll in the afternoons. Her creative talents extended beyond painting to illustrating books, writing poetry, and creating costumes and sets for ballets and theater. Despite her feminine style, her work faced challenges due to her gender. Laurencin once adopted a seemingly silly persona by saying "it's better to pass for stupid," a stance she apparently maintained in her self-proclaimed title as "the queen of airheads."

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Fondation Foujita/Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris/Bridgeman Images/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

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Fondation Foujita/Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

Laurencin's idyllic, women-only world has gained increasing appreciation as definitions of femininity have expanded in recent decades. Although she had included the occasional male figure in her early work, such as Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and the French art dealer Paul Rosenberg, her compositions are mostly "devoid of men," as explained by Fraquelli. Instead, birds, dogs, and horses pose and frolic with the women in her paintings, with her sitters including the fashion designer Coco Chanel and the socialite Maud "Emerald" Cunard.

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Jacques Faujour/Fondation Foujita/Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

The animals often symbolized women in love, such as the affectionate lovebird in "Women with Dove," a dual portrait of Laurencin and the fashion designer Nicole Groult. Groult wrote poetry describing Laurencin's eyes, breasts, and lips as birds. Laurencin often titled her women portraits "Friends" or "Two Friends," leaving their exact intimacy ambiguous.

Misunderstood intentions

Even though Laurencin never openly discussed her sexual orientation, she was an integral part of the LGBTQ artistic circles in 1920s Paris and the sapphic salons of the American expat and heiress Natalie Clifford Barney. She was familiar with the renowned lesbian writer Gertrude Stein, who purchased her work, and was captured in photographs by Berenice Abbott, who documented portraits of many influential queer women during that time.

Laurencin was married once to the German artist Otto von Waetjen and had romantic affairs with Groult and the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, among others. Later in her life, she adopted her partner Suzanne Moreau as her daughteras many LGBTQ couples without legal rights did at the timeand lived with her until her death in 1956.

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"Spanish Dancers (Danseuses espagnoles)," 1920. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. Museum purchase.

Herve Lewandowski/RMN Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

Kang added that she has difficulty interpreting the artist's work. "Is she reinforcing male stereotypes or challenging them?" Kang questioned.

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Credit: Fondation Foujita/Artists Rights Society, New York/ADAGP, Paris/Courtesy Barnes Foundation

According to the exhibition curators, Laurencin was a complex figure with unknown aspects to her life, possibly due to her working class background and potential Creole heritage, though this remains unconfirmed. Despite many artists fleeing Paris during World War II, Laurencin chose to stay and some of her private writings at the time expressed support for Marshal Philippe Pétain, who led the collaborationist Vichy France regime during Nazi occupation.

In Edo Japan, this rare female painter was highly sought after for her beautiful ink paintings.

While Laurencin's work is well-known in her home country, the majority of her collection ended up in Japan, with her partner, Moreau, keeping much of it until the end of his life. This meant that few of her paintings were publicly accessible. In the 1970s, Japanese collector Masahiro Takano became her most devoted buyer, acquiring hundreds of paintings and drawings. Takanos collection formed the basis for the Marie Laurencin Museum, first established in Tateshina, a town in Japans Nagano prefecture, before relocating to Tokyo in 2017. (Barnes founder Albert C. Barnes was also a collector of her work.)