Susanna and the Elders and some Nabis painters

Susanna and the Elders and the Nabis painters

Waiting for my request to Paris sending me a colour picture of this archived painting of Susanna and the Elders by Roland Marie Gérardin (1907-1935) shown in recent posting I today decided sharing some thematically related great paintings I’ve recently found and I really came to like. 

Susanna by Paul Ranson (1864-1909) and Paul Sérusier (1864-1927)

Just picture-Google Paul Ranson and enter a wonder world of color almost like entering into a dream or hallucination.

  
Ultimately these paintings all leading back to Paul Sérusier’s famous little painting “Talisman”. This little work, below, was to change the course of the world of painting and is said to have been painted on the back of a cigar box.

Colleague, friend and also Nabis convert ("prophet") Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) did his best capturing the bright light in "Mimosa" according to the new theories.

  
After bringing "Talisman" back from Brittany, where Sérusier had met and worked with Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), to Paris and the Académie Julian this little marvel would upset the artistic world far beyond the mere 27 x 21 = 57 square cm. it measures. It is now in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.

Paul Gauguin and Paul Serusier

Painting without depth (perspective) and simplifying the composition to arrangements and areas of colour it was a sensation and a true revolution. Many of these compositions could well have been designed as prints. 

Paul Ranson (1864-1909)

The group of followers naming themselves the Nabis, decided painting after Gauguins ideas of composition and colour while he later decided to continue his exotic life in the South seas. Among the groupmembers were also Maurice Denis (1870-1943) and  painter sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). 

Brittany according to Gauguin and Maurice Denis.

Painting like printmakers only Felix Valloton (1865-1925) actually produced many woodblock prints. Revolution started in Pont Aven, Brittany, France.  

His landscape paintings (above) could easily have been designed by a British or Scottish woodblock printmaker like Ian Cheyne (1895-1955) (right) and although all his prints are in black and white, Valloton basically is regarded as one of the pioneers and pivotal figures in Modern Printmaking.

Closing this Susanna posting with three more selected and more or less contemporary paintings: Susanna by influential German painter and Berlin professor Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) who, it was said, could paint a Saint just as well as a Whore and by symbolist painter Franz (von) Stuck (1863-1928). 

The last one (of this choice and selection) is by American Thomas Hart Benton (1884-1978)

All pictures are mouse clickable to embiggen and are borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

Hélène Mass (Maß) (VII) new finds.

The ongoing search for new pictures besides those all ready shared in the six before published postings on this artist today revealing two more new (not seen by me before) prints by printmaker Hélène Maß. Following the label attached to this posting will lead you to before postings and can be used as a reference to her prints. Or use the search function of the Blog (upper left). 

These two were offered and sold in the US in one lot a few months ago. For the purist reader: the pictures were perspectively "corrected" with Photoshop to the square (11x11 cm.) dimension she used in these small but delicate prints.

They came with American labels on the back suggesting they were originally sold in the US.  I've seen such labels before on works sold by (German) artists exhibiting in the US but haven't come across any publications mentioning such an occasion. But certainly one day ......................

Pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.  

Roland Marie Gérardin, Prix de Rome 1933

Roland Marie Gérardin

(1907-1935)

French painter

Investigating portrait artist Marthe Antoine Gérardin in before posting I couldn’ t help stumbling over her name sake Roland Marie. I have no idea if this short lived artist was in any way related to Marthe Antoine. But intrigued by the paintings emerging from the internet I noticed the consistent style and expression, the use of paint and colour in the works by this artist. So what follows here is all I was able to find about and by this obscured and forgotten artist. 

He studied at the “Ecole des Arts Decoratifs” and later at the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921) although this master apparently died when Gérardin was 15. During his short life however Gérardin exhibited widely and won many medals and prizes including the prestigeous French Prix de Rome in 1933 after being runner-up in 1930 and 1931 (see also below).

The pictures of the paintings I was able to find (btw: three of them are currently on offer at a French galerie and in Ebay) show a preference for outdoor groups, the reclining (sleeping) nude in an atmosphere of mild erotic leisure in many of his few paintings. The title "femme alanguies" of one of them translated into english probably closest to the emotion he tries to evoke: an expression (or posture) assuming tender sentimental melancholy.

The inspiration of Eduard Manet’s (1832-1883) composition “Dejeuner sûr l’ herbe” painted in 1862/63 and causing scandal 70 years before cannot be missed. Gérardin of course knew the iconic reclining nudes of Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920). And there's his admiration of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) his women and the arrangement of their forms in complex compositions and perspective (below: the Hermit and Angelica)   

Susanne taking a bath and watched by the two conniving dirty old men ("elders") was a theme introduced in 15^th century painting giving one of two Old Testament opportunities and excuses painting the naked female body (the other being Bathsheba, king Davids wife (read here * and here* ) 

Susanne by Gérardin (I could not locate a colour version of this painting) and by Venician painter Tintoretto (1518-1594). 

For reference and future Googling readers shown together in this posting are all the paintings I could find on-line by Gérardin to this date. Gérardin was awarded an exhibition in 1989 according to this poster, in St-Ouen, a district of greater Paris, showing his pottery decorations.

    

Roland Gérardin died suddenly of some form of aggressive (pancreatic?) cancer in 1935, only 28 years old, when staying in the Villa Medici after been awarded first price in the French Prix de Rome and the grant to study at the Academy Francaise in Italy. He was burried in Bréchamp just south and not far from the Paris where he was born only 28 years before. A year later (1936) fellow 1933 Prix de Rome (music) winner Robert Planel (1908-1994) created a musical composition in his memory (read here*)

Since composing this posting took quite some unsponsored time and effort, all comments after reading are, as always, very much welcomed. Comments are the Blogwriter's fuel. I can see the number of readers increasing but leaving a notice (comment) once in a while after visiting is not a common practice. 
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All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.  

Marthe Antoine Gérardin, portrait artist

Marthe Antoine Gérardin

(1884-1968)

French portrait artist, working in Holland

This portrait of my stepfather Piet was created july 17th. 1945 and I've known it from childhood. It has been in the house of his parents and after their death it was stored in our attic for decades. It was said "to artist was a once famous French artist who drew many heads of state, royalty, musicians and stage actors”.

Reframing the drawing and researching the matter recently here’s what I’ve been able to discover. The earliest works by this artist I’ve excavated were a dozen or so early 1920 postcard portraits of French actors like the ones above. These and the latest (the portrait of Piet is by far the latest I've found)  illustrate well how she grew and developed as a portrait drawing artist.  

Nora van Rappard (? - ?), a soprano, drawn on the day she gave a recital in the Kurhaus Concert Hall Scheveningen august 30th 1931 but of whom I could find no biography and proof of just 3 recitals ever given. 

Later, in the late 1920’s (according to the  precise dates she’s left on almost all of her drawings) she appeared in society circles in the-Hague, Netherlands, portraying actors and actresses, directors, musicians, artists and painters. 

Rosette (Rosa) Manus (Amsterdam 1881 - murdered because she was considered by the Nazis "too international" in Ravensbrück 1943), Dutch pacifist and womens rights activist.

Dina Appeldoorn (1884-1938), Dutch pianist and composer. 

As a society artist, later also working in Amsterdam, and travelling between Paris and the Netherlands she must have visited Buffalo Bills (Bill Cody 1846-1917) Wild West show drawing the portrait of Lone Bear (1877- after 1940) in 1923. He was said to be an extremely handsome man.  

In 1930 Marthe Gerardin was photographed at the miss Holland elections (sitting left with hat and cigarette) together with famous Dutch painter Jan Sluyters (1881-1957) sitting right who also sat as a model for her on july 2th 1929. There's only a slight hint of color in the eye, skin and lips. 

And, a day later followed by Kees Maks (1876-1967) neglected modernist painter, a student of impressionist George Hendrik Breitner, Paris friend and colleague of Jan Sluyters (1881-1957) and Kees van Dongen (1876-1967). He frequently visited and painted the circus. He painted the French Fratellini brothers, famous, worshiped even, clowns of the Paris circus in the first two decades of the 20th century. 

Among her clients, to my own surprise I discovered Jos van den Berg (1905-1978) an artist I’ve introduced not long ago in the Blog (here*) and who like Toulouse Lautrec suffered from dwarfism.

There’s a 1927 portrait of Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) in the Royal Academy of Musicians collections in London. But the picture, sadly, isn’t to be viewed publicly. 

Menuhin played his debut concert age 11  November 1927 in Carnegie Hall New York (the Beethoven Violin Concerto) and the rest of his life toured the world visiting the Netherlands in 1929. He sat for Gerardin’s portrait December 4^th in the Amstel Hotel and played the Beethoven concerto in the Concert Gebouw dec. 17^th. The illustration above is 1930. 

The Fratellini brothers in the Hague 1933 

The portraits, in color, of the French Fratellini brothers when performing in the-Hague july 9th 1933: Paolo (1877-1940), Francesco (1879-1951) and Alberto (1886-1961). Alberto's the only portrait "en face" by Gerardin no doubt because of the characteristic painted clownsface.

The portrait of Piet (Pieter Johannes Leopold) Köhler (1923-2008) is an incredibly good image of him. It was said the fee was a sack of potatoes. It was just after the liberation of the Netherlands (May 5th. 1945) and after the famine (Hongerwinter) of 1944 and young PJL having to do something with the distribution of food bonds in Amsterdam and his aunt being Charlotte Köhler (1892-1976) most celebrated actress of the Netherlands from the mid 1920’s to the early 1960’s. A possible clue to their encounter.    

These last three portraits I’ve recently discovered. Pictures kindly were send to my by the dealer in Haarlem (here*) who has them on offer. I would very much like to know the identity of these men and I’ld love to know more about the portraits, career and life of Marthe Antoine Gerardin inviting readers and passers-by to send more examples and facts for sharing.

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.

Next posting: A Gerardin relative ?