Queer Places:
5 Rue de la Mésange, 67000 Strasbourg, France
63 Rue Daguerre, 75014 Paris, France
Marcelle
Cahn (born onin
Strasbourg
, died onin
Neuilly-sur-Seine) was
a French
painter
[
1 ]
.
Artist Liv Schulman created a series of films: Le Goubernement, a
six-episode fiction imagining the destiny and work of women, lesbian, queer,
trans and non-binary artists who lived in Paris from 1910 – 1980. The episodes
traverses and overlay over 70 years of history and hosts the stories and fate
of artists that were erased from the great twentieth century modernist
narrative including Marcelle Cahn.
Marcelle
Cahn was born in Strasbourg on
, at the time
of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen (
Alsace-Lorraine
), at 5 rue de la Mésange in Strasbourg, in an Alsatian Jewish family of
French origin, the Cahn-Debré
[
3 ]
.
"My father was
in business, but he was very interested in astronomy… My mother descended from
the family of Regensburg, Strasbourg bankers converted to Catholicism
following visions and founders of the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Sion."
A studious youth,
Marcelle Cahn learned to draw, paint, play the violin and the piano. Thanks to
her mother, pianist and music lover, she discovered, very young, contemporary
music including that of
Arnold Schönberg
.
Marcelle attends the “Höhere
Mädchenschule”: the École Supérieure de Jeunes Filles de
Strasbourg
, currently the
Lycée International des Pontonniers
. She planned to become an actress for a while, took a few private lessons and
then began literary and philosophical studies at the University of
Strasbourg.
At 19, in 1914, Marcelle met Simon
Lévy, a young Alsatian painter who introduced her to
Vincent van Gogh
and
Paul Cézanne
. She hastened to acquire books on these painters.
The period from 1914 to 1918
was marked by a stay in
Berlin
where her brother Roger while this latter was doing his military service. Her mother and cousin
accompany her. Marcelle took the opportunity to attend the
Lewin-Funke-Kunstschule in
Charlottenburg
where
Eugene Spiro
(portraits) and
Lovis Corinth
(nudes) taught . In this city, Marcelle discovered with interest the
expressionist artists of the Sturm.
In 1920
Marcelle was in
Paris
and took the opportunity to see and review the works of
Cézanne
who represented for her the summit of modern painting. She also
frequented the Arraujo workshop where she drew, painted and experimented with
geometric shapes. Finally, she spent two months at the Ranson Academy then
returned to Strasbourg to continue her own research independently.
In 1923, she went to
Zurich
to take courses in philosophy; those, in particular, of
Hans Lipps
, specialist of
Kant
.
Edvard
Munch
who lived in the same hotel as Marcelle would never know that she was a painter.
Back in Paris, Marcelle went to the
Modern Academy where she is a student of Othon Friesz
who was responsible for correcting the works of the students. Friesz authorized
Marcelle to continue her own research without correcting it. After this stay
at the Modern Academy, Marcelle returned to
Strasbourg
in 1924.
In 1925,
back in Paris, Marcelle attended the
Académie de
la Grande Chaumière
and trained in nudes, still lifes, cubist drawings and paintings.
The gallery
owner
Léonce Rosenberg was
interested in her work and put her in contact with
Fernand
Léger
of the Modern Academy and with
Amédée
Ozenfant
. Marcelle also frequented painters:
Willi
Baumeister
,
Léopold
Survage
, Tutundjian,
Ossip
Zadkine
,
Suzanne
Valadon
,
Louise
Hervieu
,
Michel
Larionov
,
Natalia
Gontcharova
. In 1926, Marcelle participated in the Société Anonyme exhibition at the
Brooklyn
Museum
in
New York.[
2 ]
She also exhibited, from 1926 until
1929 at the
Salon des Indépendants
[
4 ]
.
In 1929,
Michel Seuphor
invited Marcelle Cahn to the
Cercle et Carré group
. She exhibited and met Hans Arp
,
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
,
Piet Mondrian
,
Vassily Kandinsky
,
Georges Vantongerloo
,
Jean Gorin
,
Joaquín Torres García
, etc.
In the 1930s, Marcelle Cahn withdrew
from the public art scene. She drew and painted in Strasbourg. During her
short stays in Paris in 1932 and 1934, she did not reconnect with the artists
she knew.
From 1939 to 1945, she retired, with
her mother, to
Blois
and then to
Toulouse
. She followed courses in philosophy, courses of
Father Breuil
, conferences of Father Nicolas on Christian unity. Marcelle would have
participated in an exhibition of regionalist painters in
Toulouse
. His mother died onn Toulouse. She
was very affected.
From 1947, Marcelle rediscovered
Paris
and its old acquaintances. She never stopped creating, experimenting, animated
by an innovative spirit underpinned by a rich and discreet interior life.
She lived in a room, 63 rue
Daguerre. Like
Gottfried Honegger
, graphic designer and constructivist who lived on the same street, they often
talk about their respective creations.
“ … At the end of the war, I returned to
Paris where I resumed my work. I exposed again.
I went to
the meetings of the Paul Valéry Circle, I followed the exhibitions ... The
first place where I exhibited again was the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, in
1948. My paintings were part of a kind of imagined reality. What
interested me a lot was the color. I was somehow trying to free myself from
the right. I made inroads into an area that was not mine ...
" [
2 ]
Successively, Marcelle Cahn's
creations become linear geometric drawings, collages, relief paintings, linear
paintings, photo collages, sphere paintings, spatial paintings and, until the
end of her life, more and more collages. smaller.
“
… I also made small lyrical abstract
drawings. When I was doing my line paintings, the work was very hard and I
needed a break: that's how they came…
” [
2 ]
Marcelle Cahn died at the age of 86,
on
,
at the Galignani Foundation in
Neuilly-sur-Seine
.
Marcelle Cahn donated to the
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
in Strasbourg a collection
of private archives (correspondence, books and works, in particular around 200
collages).
Marcelle
Cahn (born onin
Strasbourg
, died onin
Neuilly-sur-Seine) was
a French
painter
[
1 ]
.
Artist Liv Schulman created a series of films: Le Goubernement, a
six-episode fiction imagining the destiny and work of women, lesbian, queer,
trans and non-binary artists who lived in Paris from 1910 – 1980. The episodes
traverses and overlay over 70 years of history and hosts the stories and fate
of artists that were erased from the great twentieth century modernist
narrative including Marcelle Cahn.
