Villa Noailles
Encyclopedia
Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens was a French architect and designer. Along with Le Corbusier he is widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars....
for art patrons Charles
Charles de Noailles
Charles de Noailles , Arthur Anne Marie Charles, Vicomte de Noailles was a French nobleman and patron of the arts.-Biography:...
and Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles
Marie-Laure de Noailles, Vicomtesse de Noailles , was one of the 20th century's most daring and influential patrons of the arts, noted for her associations with Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Francis Poulenc, Jean Hugo, Jean-Michel Frank and others as well as her...
, between 1923 and 1927. It is located in the hills above Hyères
Hyères
Hyères , Provençal Occitan: Ieras in classical norm or Iero in Mistralian norm) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France....
, in the Var, southeastern France.
History
Charles de Noailles was born in 1891, and his wife Marie-Laure was born in 1902. They were married in 1923. Before their marriage, they became friends of artist-filmmaker Jean CocteauJean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, and Noailles commissioned a portrait of his wife by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
in 1923.
In 1923, they signed a contract with an architect Robert Mallet-Stevens to built a summer villa in the hills above the city of Hyères. Construction was underway for three years, and eventually also included a triangular cubist garden designed by Gabriel Guevrekian
Gabriel Guevrekian
Gabriel Guevrekian was an architect and landscape designer. Primarily an architect Guevrekian is best known for his contributions to landscape architecture...
.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Noailles were important patrons of modern art, particularly surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
; they supported film projects by Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
and Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
; and commissioned paintings, photographs and sculptures by Balthus
Balthus
Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....
, Giacometti, Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, and Dora Maar
Dora Maar
Dora Maar was a French photographer, poet and painter, best known for being a lover and muse of Pablo Picasso.-Life:...
. Villa Noailles features prominently in Man Ray's film Les Mystères du Château de Dé.
In 1940 the villa was occupied by the Italian Army and turned into a hospital. From 1947 until 1970, the villa was the summer residence of Marie-Laure. She died in 1970, and the house was purchased by the city of Hyères in 1973. Charles de Noailles died in 1981.
The villa is now used as an arts center and for special exhibits.
James Lord
James Lord (author)
James Lord was an American writer. He was the author of several books, including critically acclaimed biographies of the artists Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso...
was a guest there in the mid-fifties. In his book "Picasso and Dora: a memoir" he writes: "...an undistinguished cubist extravaganza of reinforced concrete set atop a high hill, within the ancient walls of a Saracen fortress. It had been designed in the late twenties by a fashionable architect named Mallet-Stevens, contained something like fifty rooms and was surrounded by a large garden." He recalls the room, where Marie-Laure tried to seduce him: "...a large salon at Saint-Bernard which had no windows but was lighted from above by a bizarre cubist skylight which occupied almost all the ceiling, adding to the sense of existing outside time in a stranded ocean liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
." The beauty of the location did not help, however, the "redoutable viscountess" in conquering his chastity
Chastity
Chastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....
.