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It's really impossible to omit Madame
Jacqueline Marval's art when speaking of the evolution of French
painting at the beginning of this century. She is probably the painter
who provided the greatest inspiration to the young "Fauve generation",
and so we must mention her innovative work.
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After long years of "purgatory", we now see a rebirth
for her and her famous contempories, who were often her friends.
She was born in 1866 at Quaix, near Grenoble, and she moved to Paris
in 1895 to 9, rue Campagne Première in Montparnasse where
she lived with a multitude of other artists.
Her beloved friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, was one of Gustave
Moreau's students. There she was also to meet Henri Matisse, Albert
Marquet, Manguin, Kees Van Dongen, Camoin, Rouault, Charles Guérin…
On arriving in Paris, she lived the hard life of a streamstress,
and took up painting in the late 1890's.
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The
first great landmark in the career was in 1901 when she took part
in the
"Salon des Indépendants". |
Berthe Weill, Ambroise Vollard and Eugène Druet were all
greatly interested in her works, buying them and arranging exhibitions
in their galleries. |
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Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1901
(1 x 2 m - 39 ½ in x 79 in).
Now Galerie Les Aristoloches, Grenoble. |
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Her independent mind, as well as her nature which was that of a
cheerful and creative woman, set her apart from her contempories.
After the world famous Modern Art exhibition of 1902, during which
Matisse, Marquet, Flandrin and Marval's paintings where exhibited
for the first time, at Berthe Weill's small gallery at 25 rue Victor
Massé, she began a long, active and flourishing period marked
by numerous exhibitions in Paris, Europe and the United States.
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Salon des Indépendants, 1903
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1902-03
(1,94 x 2,30 m - 76 ¼ in x 91 in)
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While at the "Salon des Indépendants" in 1903,
Matisse was stunned with admiration for Marval's
painting " Les Odalisques ", which
is now in the Musée de Grenoble.
In 1905, the painters Marquet and Manguin conpared their work
with Jacqueline Marval's as "good taste in front
of her genious", on a postcard they sent to her
in 1905.
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Oil on canvas, signed,
circa 1929
(1,16 x 0,90 m - 45 ½ in x 35 in)
Private collection,
Paris. |
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*
Confidence imparted by Henri Matisse on a visit to Lucien Mainssieux's
studio and mentioned by the latter in his manuscripts, preserved
at the Musée Mainssieux in Voiron, near Grenoble. |
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Private Collection.
Moscow
Oil on canvas, (0,80 x 0,90 m - 31 ½ in x 35 ½ in) |
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Admired for her spontaneous and fine
talent and for her great generosity and kindness towards friends
and young talents, the parisian critics glorified her.
She lived amongst the flowers she painted in her "Belle
Campagne" at 19 quai Saint-Michel, next to her friends
Matisse and Marquet, where her windows opened on to Notre Dame
or bridge Saint –Michel and where she lived in a fantasy
world of never-ending youth.
She died in poverty in Paris in 1932 during the economic depression.
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After the Second World War, the new
art galleries tended to exhibit works by living artists –
the great painters of the mid twentieth Century such as Picasso,
Léger, Braque, Chagall, Matisse, Foujita, Laurencin, Utrillo,
etc…- and the newer generation.
Twenty years after her death without an heir and after the closing
of the Galerie Druet in 1938, Marval became forgotten.
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François Roussier.
Curator of Musée Mainssieux..
Voiron, Isère.
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