Group of Artists, 1908 - Marie Laurencin - not just a groupie of Cubism

In this group portrait you might recognize the figure in the blue suit, with his empty-eyed profile, reminiscent of West African masks. Perhaps you will identify the main male figure, regally reclining in the brown armchair. You may also figure out who the lady in the green dress is, with her coquettish smile, auburn hair and emerald green eyes.

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But odds are – you probably won’t know the name of the beautiful woman in the navy-blue dress, cradling a delicate pink flower in the palm of her hand.

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Even if you are not familiar with the faces of these modernists, you have probably heard their names: the man in blue is Pablo Picasso, the somewhat bewildered-looking man in the armchair is the poet, Guillaume Apollinaire. The beautiful lady in green is Picasso’s lover - Fernande Olivier.

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The lady with the pink flower is the author of the painting. Her name is Marie Laurencin and for a long time she was only considered important as a side note to Cubism, one of the bohemian groupies in Picasso’s inner-circle, hanging out at the Bateau-Lavoir.

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At best, her importance was highlighted in the art historical canon as Apollinaire’s lover and muse. They met through friends and fellow students Francis Picabia and Georges Braque and thus she was swept into the whirlwind of the Cubist movement. Apollinaire was quite enchanted with her and praised her, somewhat dubiously, in his writing, stating: “the greatest error of most women artists is that they try to surpass men, losing in the process their taste and their charm… <Laurencin> is aware of the deep differences that separate men from women - essential, ideal difference."

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Their turbulent relationship lasted five years until 1912. But her art bloomed and continued to flourish into its own unique aesthetic language. Her ethereal and often erotic depictions of women, her gentle pink and blue pastel palette now stood in sharp contrast to the crude masculinity of Cubism. Was she a lesser modernist than her male counterparts? I don’t think she aimed to “surpass them”. I think she created her own parallel realm and ran her own sensual, poetic, phantasmagorical race within it.

Main Image:

Group of Artists, oil on canvas, 1908. This work was Laurencin’s first art sale. It was purchased by none other than Gertrude Stein

Réunion à la campagne (Apollinaire et ses amis), 1909, oil on canvas, Musée Picasso, Paris. She painted this second group portrait as a gift to Apollinaire. He had the painting hanging above his bed and kept it until he died (she meant a lot to him). Laurencin is seated on the floor in a beautiful blue dress.

You might be familiar with this painting – The Muse Inspiring the Poet, 1909. This is how Henri Rousseau saw Maire Laurencin and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Ballerinas at Rest, circa 1941

Self-portrait, 1927

1923 portrait of Coco Chanel. Mademoiselle Chanel commissioned this portrait after getting acquainted with Laurencin while they were both designing costumes Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes.

La guitare, 1936

Laurencin's early self-portrait from 1904 where she still painted in an academic style

Le Bal élégant, La Danse à la campagne, 1910

This double portrait is of Maire Laurencin herself and her friend and art collector Cecilia de Madrazo.