Jacqueline Marval, painter, lithographer, sculptress : flowers

Painter, lithographer and sculptress. Born in Quaix, Dauphiné ( 1866- 1932).

Exhibitions at the "Salon d'Autumn" ( board member ), Salon des Indépendants, the Société National des Beaux-Arts, and at the Tuileries. She took part in many exhibitions abroad, notably in Pittsburg, Barcelona, Liège, Venice, Kyoto and in various cities in Switzerland and Hungary. Her parents, who were school principals, would have liked her to be a teacher but she knew that this would not be her fate, as from a very young age she felt the need to paint.

Collections : Georges Menier, P. Bénard, Mattéi, Miquel, Ducharne, René Dubost, Paquement…
Museums : Luxembourg (La Mystérieuse), Le Havre, Nantes, Alger, Kyoto …

"Grand Bouquet à ma fenêtre"
La Préfecture, la Seine et les bouquinistes.
Oil on canvas, signed - 1,10 x 1,50 m - 43 ¼ in x 59 in - Private collection.

"Pivoines blanches"
Oil on canvas, signed, circa 1920 - 0,90 x 1,16 m - 35 in x 45 ½ in - Private collection.

"Grand bouquet de roses"
Oil on canvas, signed, circa 1920 - 1,30 x 1,95 m - 51 in x 79 in - private collection, Moscow.

"Fleurs à ma fenêtre"
Oil on canvas, signed - 0,70 x 1,40 m - 27 ½ in x 55 in - Private collection.

Painter, lithographer and sculptress. Born in Quaix, Dauphiné ( 1866- 1932). Exhibitions at the "Salon d'Autumn" ( board member ), Salon des Indépendants, the Société National des Beaux-Arts, and at the Tuileries. She took part in many exhibitions abroad, notably in Pittsburg, Barcelona, Liège, Venice, Kyoto and in various cities in Switzerland and Hungary. Her parents, who were school principals, would have liked her to be a teacher but she knew that this would not be her fate, as from a very young age she felt the need to paint. Collections : Georges Menier, P. Bénard, Mattéi, Miquel, Ducharne, René Dubost, Paquement… Museums : Luxembourg (La Mystérieuse), Le Havre, Nantes, Alger, Kyoto …
"Grand Bouquet à ma fenêtre" La Préfecture, la Seine et les bouquinistes. Oil on canvas, signed - 1,10 x 1,50 m - 43 ¼ in x 59 in - Private collection.
	Jacqueline Marval was not a female painter. She was just a painter. She could never understand why artists were categorised according to their sex; She always refused to exhibit exclusively with her "lady colleagues". She didn't believe that an art exhibition should invoke a feminist convention. She found the ladies compartment wearisome…

	Jacqueline Marval was never very feminine in the sense that she didn't care about fashion. She never adhered to it in the hope that, eventually, thanks to the shape of a dress or hat, she would be sought after by art lovers, who with a taste for the past, would strive to keep its lost grace. The timelessness of a fashion plate might be charming, but Jacqueline Marval had higher and more justified ambitions.
The science of volume and proportions, the sense of composition, the mystical play on shadows and light, a velvety cheek, the tranparency of a veil, the expression of a sentiment and all that is fleeting, inaccessible in the everchanging sky which is "the face of a woman". This is what her magical brush set down for ever!
"Pivoines blanches" Oil on canvas, signed, circa 1920 - 0,90 x 1,16 m - 35 in x 45 ½ in - Private collection.
	Little girls playing on golden beaches, odalisques dreaming in the blue peacefulness of a harem, naïve courtesans, first communicants, pale children, multicoloured dolls, translucid fairies and all the characters of magic and legend from Cinderella to Sylvie incorporating Emma Bovary, she painted all of this joyfully, vigourously and with momentum, faith and supremacy, painted by a veritable master, an inexhaustible enchanter !

	And it is never "literary"! Jacqueline Marval dreaded literary art. She believed that art has borders and that painting must stimulate, charm and endure only by its own quality.
"Grand bouquet de roses" Oil on canvas, signed, circa 1920 - 1,30 x 1,95 m - 51 in x 79 in - private collection, Moscow.
Look at those flowers, those dazzling flowers, so light, so misty, so carnal! It is a glistening cascade of hawthorn, blueberries, lillies, daisies, peonies, irises, dahlias, poppies, guelder-roses, phlox, buttercups, digitalis and especially roses, roses of every shape, every kind and every colour.
	And these flowers, so rarely arranged in order, almost always thrown in a jumble, live again with such intensity, so ardently, so violently that when we look at a canvas by Marval, we think that it will soon fade and die away like a bouquet.
	But of course it won't, these shimmering paintings, done with such force and tenderness, by this solitary and wild Jacqueline Marval. Art which is honest, haughty and deep gives them permanence. From her window on the Quai Saint Michel, Marval's gaze went as far and as high as the greatest…
	"Neiges de blancs bouquets d'étoiles parfumées" (Snow white bouquets of perfumed stars).The end of an Autumn day, while watching Marval at work, I murmured these lines by Malarmé which define her prestigious art so well.
"Fleurs à ma fenêtre" Oil on canvas, signed - 0,70 x 1,40 m - 27 ½ in x 55 in - Private collection.
Night falling on Notre Dame. The last glows of twilight fall on the embankment, in folds of shadow and silence, we can only hear the cry of a faraway boat. Paris is like a little abandoned harbour. Everything gets dark, such a cold and sad darkness… But in front of me a mottled spray of flowers fills the studio with charm and light… Pierre VARENNE D'après le Dictionnaire Biographique des Artistes Contemporains, 1910-1930, par Edouard Joseph, Art & Edition, Paris, 1931 (Droits Réservés)