Émilie Charmy
Encyclopedia
Emilie Charmy (April 2, 1878–1974) was an artist in France's early avant-garde. She worked closely with Fauve
artists like Henri Matisse
, and was active in exhibiting her artworks in Paris, particularly with Berthe Weill.
educational training at a Catholic private school
, and qualified to become a teacher. (Perry,21) However, she refused jobs in teaching in the late 1890s and moved to Lyon
in 1898 (Perry,23) to work in the studio of Jacques Martin. This was a critical moment in the further development of Charmy's career. Martin was involved with a number of other Lyon artists who became influential in Charmy's artistic development. The artists included Louis Carrand and François Vernay. These artists had developed a local reputation in Lyon because they had created a unique approach to flower painting. (Perry,21) The artists delved into spiritual realms in their paintings by relying on color to capture the essence of the object, rather than focusing on delineating details in mimetic form. For male artists, flower painting was a reputable genre because it followed in the 17th century Dutch
tradition of flower painting, which relied heavily on symbol
ic and allegorical
meanings. For women artists, it was common for their flower paintings to be aligned with the decorative, rather than the allegorical traditions of painting. Charmy, however, blurred these boundaries by creating powerful images of flowers and still-life through her distinctive painterly technique. Later on, Charmy began to experiment with landscape painting, female nudes, and bourgeois women as subjects of her paintings, and never abandoned her distinctive technique.
, and most women regarded it as a hobby
, rather than a career. But for Charmy, "painting was an obsession which dominated many other aspects of her life." (Perry,85) She was consumed by her work and was entirely financially dependent on her art
. Her paintings were very marketable because flower paintings and still-life paintings
were considered decorative, and were sought after by the middle class. (Perry,52) Yet curiously enough, Charmy refused to sign contracts with art dealer
s and gallery
owners, save for one unsuccessful contract with the dealer Pétridès in the early 1930s. (Perry,89) Instead, Charmy kept her loyalties to Berthe Weill, a famous art dealer. Weill was committed to exhibiting the artworks produced by women artists, but her financial instability made it difficult for artists like Charmy to be solely dependent on exhibitions there. While other women artists sought alternate dealers to contract them, Charmy was patronized by Katia Granoff.
Later on in her career, four of Charmy's paintings were exhibited at the Armory Show
in New York City, two of which sold for $135 each.
described Charmy as "a great free painter; beyond influences and without method, she creates her own separate kingdom where the flights of her sensibility rule alone." (Perry,100) Indeed, Charmy's style is unique. Her bold use of color and her unapologetic brushstrokes have been deemed as "appropriating…a ‘masculine’ language of art production," according her contemporaries. (Perry,55) Charmy uses bright, colorful lines and strong abstracted color planes to create cropped images. This mode of fragmenting the image demands careful observation on the part of the viewer to parse what is being depicted, how the image is being executed onto the canvas
, and how the canvas demands the eye to absorb the image. These were all pertinent issues for the Impressionist artists preceding Charmy's work.
Charmy primarily painted women in domestic or bourgeois settings, as well as focusing on flower and still-life paintings. (Perry,25) There is a great sense of abstraction
in her images, and a number of different art critic
s have offered multiple perspectives. In regards to Charmy's nude paintings, Gill Perry proposes that Charmy is intentionally trying to restrict the viewer from the intimate scenes that she depicts; (Perry,25) hence, the use of abstracted lines and suggestions of color are meant to bound the subject to an alternate realm from reality. Perry cites Interior at Saint-Etienne and La Loge as two examples. According to Perry, Charmy was essentially at the fore in creating a new iconography
of the female nude, within a new, modern context.
Charmy was also unconventional in her painting style because she left parts of her canvas unpainted. This daring was in suit with other Fauve
artists, but again, these artists were male. Hence, it would be an especially bold choice for a female artist like Charmy to reject the idea of painting in the entire canvas space.
." She notes that French women did not enjoy voting
or equal pay rights until 1944, and explains that the most influential factors in a woman's life were the church, and Rousseauian ideals of a traditional family unit. (Perry,85) If a woman were to have a career, it was limited to education
. (Perry,23)
In this regard, Emilie Charmy was an exceptional artist. Interestingly enough, her pursuit of art led people to describe her in gendered terms, the most famous quote being from Roland Dorgelès
: "Émilie Charmy, it would appear, sees like a woman and paints like a man; from the one she takes grace and from the other strength, and this is what makes her such a strange and powerful painter who holds our attention." (Perry,100) Of courses, these gendered readings are extraordinarily problematic in our contemporary, 21st century context. Yet it is precisely this recognition of Charmy's resistance to traditional gender roles that makes her unique for her time.
In fact, Charmy was almost scorned by her art dealer, Berthe Weill, because she viewed Charmy's relationship with her son Edmond as distant and unnatural. (Perry,83) Edmond, like Charmy, was placed in the care of paid nurses and carers until the age of fourteen. Although this was acceptable during Charmy's childhood, this practice was becoming increasingly rare as traditional roles of motherhood were becoming more popular. In one biography, Edmond notes that "while some mothers glory in their offspring, Charmy hid hers jealously. This newly born knew neither the disorder of the studio nor the smell of paint." (Perry,84) What is particularly interesting to note is that despite Charmy's interest in using female models as subjects for her paintings, she avoided the mother-and-child theme that was becoming increasingly popular, especially with contemporary artists like Mary Cassatt
. (Perry,85)
Women artists
were generally banned from art studios or academies during sessions with live models, so many women painted bourgeois life by default. Yet, Charmy's work exhibits an interest in painting female models and prostitutes. Such images of women are common among male artists like Degas, but were rare among women artists
. Most women artists were interested in painting an idyllic view of women and their children.
. Her first documented show was at the Indépendants gallery in 1904, and it is likely that it was through this show that she befriended other Fauve artists, like Henri Matisse, Charles Camoin
, and Albert Marquet
. In the following year, she exhibited two still-life
paintings titled Dahlias and Fruit, at the Salon d'Automne
. (Perry,46) In 1906, she showed 5 flower paintings and one still-life
titled Prunes, also at the Salon d'Automne. In 1921, Charmy enjoyed a solo exhibition at the Galeries d'Oeuvres d'Art, and showed paintings of flowers, women, and female nudes. The show caused quite a stir in the Parisian art scene, and sparked a number of critical issues concerning the debate of "feminine" art. (Perry,98) This show was particularly impressive because it was organized by Count de Jouvencel, who had discovered her at Berthe Weill's gallery several years earlier, in 1919. (Perry,96)
Fauvism
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
artists like Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, and was active in exhibiting her artworks in Paris, particularly with Berthe Weill.
Biography
Emilie Charmy was born on April 2nd, 1878 in Saint-Etienne (France), and passed away in Paris in 1974. Orphaned at the age of 5, her older brother Jean becomes her guardian. Charmy was interested in music and painting, for which she showed much talent. Her brother, conscious of this gift, encouraged her to continue. At the turn of the century, Emilie and Jean moved to Lyon, where she makes the acquaintance of Jacques Martin and becomes his student. A few years later, Charmy and her brother leave Lyon for Saint-Cloud. During this period, she participated in various shows, such as the "Salon des Independents" in 1903, 1904 and 1905, and the "Salon d'Automne" in 1906. Berthe Weill quickly appreciated Charmy's work and exhibited it very early on. Around 1909, Charmy settled into two artist studios at 54, rue de Bourgogne in Paris, moving there permanently in 1910 and remaining there for the rest of her life. In 1912, her first major solo exhibition was held at the Galerie Druet. The same year, she met the painter George Bouche, whom she ends up marrying nearly 20 years later; they have a son, Edmond, in 1915. A second exhibition of her work is held in 1919 in the Galerie André Pesson, a gallery founded by several artists. The exhibition catalog is prefaced by Enrique Gomez Carillo. Also in 1919, Charmy makes the acquaintance of the Count Etienne de Jouvencel, who becomes a patron of her work and shares his enthusiasm for her painting within the literary and artistic circles of the time. He furthermore organized several high profile exhibitions of her work in the Parisian art world. "Canvas", a major solo exhibition of Charmy's work, was held at the Galerie Œuvres d’Art, rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, in 1921, with catalog texts written by Louis Leon Martin, Henri Béraud, Roland Dorgelès and Pierre Mac Orlan. Around 1922, Charmy met Colette, whom she befriends. Colette, at that time at the height of her popularity, wrote the introductory text for the catalog of a major exhibition of twenty pictures by Charmy, held in 1922. The same year, Charmy participated in another major exhibition at the Styles Gallery, on the theme of the "Female Nude", which included paintings by Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Manet, Renoir, Rouault and Matisse, and a catalog prefaced by Louis Vauxcelles. Both the French and the foreign press praised Charmy's work. In 1926, another major solo exhibition was held at the Galerie Barbazanges. Thanks in part to Eli-Joseph Bois, Director of the Petit Parisien newspaper, Charmy was awarded the Legion of Honor. Bois also introduced her to several political figures, including Edouard Daladier, Aristide Briand and Louise Weiss, with whom she became close. After the war, Charmy exhibited very little, and when she did it was usually at the Galerie Jeanne Castel, spending her last decades in solitude, concentrated on her work but forgotten by critics and the public.Early career
Charmy received a bourgeoisBourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
educational training at a Catholic private school
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...
, and qualified to become a teacher. (Perry,21) However, she refused jobs in teaching in the late 1890s and moved to Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
in 1898 (Perry,23) to work in the studio of Jacques Martin. This was a critical moment in the further development of Charmy's career. Martin was involved with a number of other Lyon artists who became influential in Charmy's artistic development. The artists included Louis Carrand and François Vernay. These artists had developed a local reputation in Lyon because they had created a unique approach to flower painting. (Perry,21) The artists delved into spiritual realms in their paintings by relying on color to capture the essence of the object, rather than focusing on delineating details in mimetic form. For male artists, flower painting was a reputable genre because it followed in the 17th century Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
tradition of flower painting, which relied heavily on symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ic and allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
meanings. For women artists, it was common for their flower paintings to be aligned with the decorative, rather than the allegorical traditions of painting. Charmy, however, blurred these boundaries by creating powerful images of flowers and still-life through her distinctive painterly technique. Later on, Charmy began to experiment with landscape painting, female nudes, and bourgeois women as subjects of her paintings, and never abandoned her distinctive technique.
Career
Charmy had a peculiar career for a woman of her time. Many women were shunned from the art worldArt world
The art world is composed of all the people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. Howard S. Becker describes it as "the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things,...
, and most women regarded it as a hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
, rather than a career. But for Charmy, "painting was an obsession which dominated many other aspects of her life." (Perry,85) She was consumed by her work and was entirely financially dependent on her art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
. Her paintings were very marketable because flower paintings and still-life paintings
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
were considered decorative, and were sought after by the middle class. (Perry,52) Yet curiously enough, Charmy refused to sign contracts with art dealer
Art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...
s and gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
owners, save for one unsuccessful contract with the dealer Pétridès in the early 1930s. (Perry,89) Instead, Charmy kept her loyalties to Berthe Weill, a famous art dealer. Weill was committed to exhibiting the artworks produced by women artists, but her financial instability made it difficult for artists like Charmy to be solely dependent on exhibitions there. While other women artists sought alternate dealers to contract them, Charmy was patronized by Katia Granoff.
Later on in her career, four of Charmy's paintings were exhibited at the Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
in New York City, two of which sold for $135 each.
Style
French novelist Roland DorgelèsRoland Dorgelès
Roland Dorgelès , was a French novelist and a member of the Académie Goncourt.Born Roland Lecavelé , he spent his childhood in Paris....
described Charmy as "a great free painter; beyond influences and without method, she creates her own separate kingdom where the flights of her sensibility rule alone." (Perry,100) Indeed, Charmy's style is unique. Her bold use of color and her unapologetic brushstrokes have been deemed as "appropriating…a ‘masculine’ language of art production," according her contemporaries. (Perry,55) Charmy uses bright, colorful lines and strong abstracted color planes to create cropped images. This mode of fragmenting the image demands careful observation on the part of the viewer to parse what is being depicted, how the image is being executed onto the canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
, and how the canvas demands the eye to absorb the image. These were all pertinent issues for the Impressionist artists preceding Charmy's work.
Charmy primarily painted women in domestic or bourgeois settings, as well as focusing on flower and still-life paintings. (Perry,25) There is a great sense of abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
in her images, and a number of different art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
s have offered multiple perspectives. In regards to Charmy's nude paintings, Gill Perry proposes that Charmy is intentionally trying to restrict the viewer from the intimate scenes that she depicts; (Perry,25) hence, the use of abstracted lines and suggestions of color are meant to bound the subject to an alternate realm from reality. Perry cites Interior at Saint-Etienne and La Loge as two examples. According to Perry, Charmy was essentially at the fore in creating a new iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
of the female nude, within a new, modern context.
Charmy was also unconventional in her painting style because she left parts of her canvas unpainted. This daring was in suit with other Fauve
Fauve
Fauve may refer to:* Fauve , American comics artist* Fauve , a short legged hunting breed of dog* Fauvism, a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century modern art* Fauve Software, a defunct software company...
artists, but again, these artists were male. Hence, it would be an especially bold choice for a female artist like Charmy to reject the idea of painting in the entire canvas space.
Charmy and "Les Fauves"
Charmy's style has been closely aligned with the Fauve movement (literally translates to "wild beasts"), which was a term applied to a group of loosely associated artists. Hence, "Les Fauves" did not work as a structured artistic alliance, but it was carried out by the efforts of Henri Matisse. It has been confirmed that Charmy was friendly with Matisse and other artists in the Fauve movement, but again, it is difficult to establish what type of connection she had with the artists. In any case, it is obvious that Charmy was influenced by the aesthetics of other Fauve and Expressionist artists.Charmy and early 20th century gender roles
Shari Benstock recounts that early 20th century French women's lifestyles "lagged far behind their American and English peers in their efforts to gain political and legal equalityGender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
." She notes that French women did not enjoy voting
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
or equal pay rights until 1944, and explains that the most influential factors in a woman's life were the church, and Rousseauian ideals of a traditional family unit. (Perry,85) If a woman were to have a career, it was limited to education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. (Perry,23)
In this regard, Emilie Charmy was an exceptional artist. Interestingly enough, her pursuit of art led people to describe her in gendered terms, the most famous quote being from Roland Dorgelès
Roland Dorgelès
Roland Dorgelès , was a French novelist and a member of the Académie Goncourt.Born Roland Lecavelé , he spent his childhood in Paris....
: "Émilie Charmy, it would appear, sees like a woman and paints like a man; from the one she takes grace and from the other strength, and this is what makes her such a strange and powerful painter who holds our attention." (Perry,100) Of courses, these gendered readings are extraordinarily problematic in our contemporary, 21st century context. Yet it is precisely this recognition of Charmy's resistance to traditional gender roles that makes her unique for her time.
In fact, Charmy was almost scorned by her art dealer, Berthe Weill, because she viewed Charmy's relationship with her son Edmond as distant and unnatural. (Perry,83) Edmond, like Charmy, was placed in the care of paid nurses and carers until the age of fourteen. Although this was acceptable during Charmy's childhood, this practice was becoming increasingly rare as traditional roles of motherhood were becoming more popular. In one biography, Edmond notes that "while some mothers glory in their offspring, Charmy hid hers jealously. This newly born knew neither the disorder of the studio nor the smell of paint." (Perry,84) What is particularly interesting to note is that despite Charmy's interest in using female models as subjects for her paintings, she avoided the mother-and-child theme that was becoming increasingly popular, especially with contemporary artists like Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
. (Perry,85)
Women artists
Women artists
Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
were generally banned from art studios or academies during sessions with live models, so many women painted bourgeois life by default. Yet, Charmy's work exhibits an interest in painting female models and prostitutes. Such images of women are common among male artists like Degas, but were rare among women artists
Women artists
Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
. Most women artists were interested in painting an idyllic view of women and their children.
Exhibitions
Although little is referenced, Charmy is known to have met considerable success in the Parisian gallery scene principally in the 1920s. At a time when women artists were shunned from the art market, Charmy exhibited her works a number of galleriesArt gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
. Her first documented show was at the Indépendants gallery in 1904, and it is likely that it was through this show that she befriended other Fauve artists, like Henri Matisse, Charles Camoin
Charles Camoin
Charles Camoin[p] was a French painter associated with the Fauves.Born in Marseille, France, Camoin met Henri Matisse in Gustave Moreau's class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris...
, and Albert Marquet
Albert Marquet
Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement.-Life and work:Marquet was born in 1875 at Bordeaux. In 1890 he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work...
. In the following year, she exhibited two still-life
Still
A still is a permanent apparatus used to distill miscible or immiscible liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor...
paintings titled Dahlias and Fruit, at the Salon d'Automne
Salon d'Automne
In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
. (Perry,46) In 1906, she showed 5 flower paintings and one still-life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
titled Prunes, also at the Salon d'Automne. In 1921, Charmy enjoyed a solo exhibition at the Galeries d'Oeuvres d'Art, and showed paintings of flowers, women, and female nudes. The show caused quite a stir in the Parisian art scene, and sparked a number of critical issues concerning the debate of "feminine" art. (Perry,98) This show was particularly impressive because it was organized by Count de Jouvencel, who had discovered her at Berthe Weill's gallery several years earlier, in 1919. (Perry,96)