Jeanne Malivel was a Breton

Breton people

The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...

 designer and illustrator who inspired the Breton nationalist art movement Seiz Breur

Seiz Breur

Seiz Breur was an artistic movement founded in 1923 in Brittany. Although it adopted the symbolic name seiz breur, meaning seven brothers in the Breton language, this did not refer to the number of members, but to the title of a folk-story...

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Originally from Loudéac

Loudéac

Loudéac is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France.-A market town:Loudéac is a very pretty market town with many traditional buildings and mediaeval streets to enjoy. The weekly market, which sells the best and freshest of local produce, goes on as it has for...

, she revived the art of woodblock printing in her illustrations for the Breton nationalist book The History of our Brittany by Jeanne Coroller-Danio

Jeanne Coroller-Danio

Jeanne Coroller-Danio was a Breton nationalist and writer. She is also known as Jeanne Coroller and Jeanne Chassin du Guerny . Her best known pen-name was Danio, but she published her work under various pseudonyms: J.C...

 in 1922. These illustrations were influenced by the earlier Synthetism

Synthetism

Synthetism is a term used by post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin to distinguish their work from Impressionism. Earlier, Synthetism has been connected to the term Cloisonnism, and later to Symbolism...

 of Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

 and Emile Bernard

Émile Bernard

Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...

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The images were greatly admired by René-Yves Creston

René-Yves Creston

René-Yves Creston , born René Pierre Joseph Creston, was a Breton artist, designer and ethnographer who founded the Breton nationalist art movement Seiz Breur...

, who considered them to provide the basis for a revived Breton style in art. Creston collaborated with Malivel on a number of works and in the pair set up Seiz Breur, which quickly grew in influence. The title of the movement was derived from a folk story about seven brothers ("seiz Breur" in Breton) collected and published by Malivel.

Malivel also painted works in fresco, and designed furniture, embroidery and ceramics. She participated in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Industry in 1925, showing furniture colloboratively designed with Creston. Following her sudden and early death at the age of 30 in the following year, leadership of the movement fell to Creston.