Print Marie Laurencin, “Jeune fille à la guitarre”, 1946 etching

Marie laurencin. 1883 – 1956 (paris) “jeune fille à la guitarre” (young women with guitar) (also known as ‘the angel’) 1946. Hand-coloured etching on bfk rives. Signed in the plate. 195 × 170 mm|7 5/8 × 6 5/8 in. 480 × 400 mm|18 7/8 × 15 5/8 in (framed size) A very beautiful print, sensitively framed, produced during the artist’s lifetime, in a small edition, under her supervision. Often seen uncoloured, this example has particularly luminous colouring, with definite emphasis given to the ‘wings’ that give the work its alternative title. In gilded frame. Reverse bears an original gallery price of dm3, 200 (approx eu1, 500). Marie laurencin was a french painter and printmaker, born in paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in sèvres. She then returned to paris and continued her art education at the académie humbert, where she changed her focus to oil painting. During the early years of the 20th century, laurencin was an important figure in the parisian avant-garde. A member of both the circle of pablo picasso, and cubists associated with the section d'or, such as jean metzinger, albert gleizes, robert delaunay, henri le fauconnier and francis picabia, exhibiting with them at the salon des indépendants (1910-1911) and the salon d'automne (1911-1912), and galeries dalmau (1912) at the first cubist exhibition in spain. She became romantically involved with the poet guillaume apollinaire, and has often been identified as his muse. In addition, laurencin had important connections to the salon of the american expatriate and lesbian writer natalie clifford barney. She had relationships with men and women, and her art reflected her life, her ‘balletic wraiths’ and ‘sidesaddle amazons’ providing the art world with her brand of ‘queer femme with a gallic twist.’.

Ref. : HS8H4D7J