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Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

French, 1885-1956

Artist Marie Laurencin is best known for her enchanting portraits of women and young girls. The Parisian artist was linked to the avant-garde Cubist movement, but she endeavored to disassociate herself from the style as she instead drew on the Impressionist style of Pierre-Auguste Renoir in her paintings and prints, and created poetic, overtly sensual images of women in Fauvism’s subdued pastels at a time when the leagues of male artists around her became famous for making still lifes. 

Just as Renoir and other painters began their careers painting pottery in Limoges, Laurencin trained in porcelain painting in the southwestern suburbs of Paris before she studied oil painting at Académie Humbert alongside influential Cubist painter Georges Braque and French designer and painter Francis Picabia. Her circle consisted of widely known and reputable artists including Braque and Pablo Picasso, with whom she exhibited. Her romantic partners were both male and female over the years, and she repeatedly refused marriage proposals from the most famous art dealer at the time, Sir Joseph Duveen, Baronet. Laurencin had a romantic relationship with French poet Guillaume Apollinaire that lasted six years.

Laurencin produced most of her best known work throughout the 1920s. During this era, she worked with art dealer Paul Rosenberg although she frequently ignored his business advice. Known to only paint children she liked, Laurencin also charged men twice that of women, as well as brunettes more than blondes, and offered discounts for works she enjoyed doing and steeper prices for those she cared less for. 

Laurencin’s work increasingly attracted attention over time — she had more than ten solo exhibitions in 1939 alone and was commissioned for portraits by the likes of Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel. (Revered fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld — who consistently displayed a knack for synthesizing old and new, high and low — drew on the work of Laurencin in his Spring/Summer 2011 collection for Chanel.)

Laurencin’s six illustrations of "Alice" in a 1930 edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland comprise a small sample of the art she made that is held in the public collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Her works are also held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. In 1983, a museum opened in her honor — the Musée Marie Laurencin in Nagano, Japan. At the time, it was the only museum in the world to focus solely on a female painter. 

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Artist: Marie Laurencin
Marie Laurencin portrait drawing of her mother, 1903
By Marie Laurencin
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Marie Laurencin (French, 1885 – 1956) Portrait of Pauline Laurencin, the artist’s mother, circa 1903 Black crayon on paper Inscribed ‘Despair and die / not die’ (upper right) 6.5/8 x...
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Early 20th Century Post-Impressionist Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon

Marie Laurencin Original Graphite Drawing - Female Portrait
By Marie Laurencin
Located in Phoenix, AZ
Graceful original graphite drawing by French artist Marie Laurencin (1885-1956). Signed lower right with her initials "M.L." Created circa 1930's. Graphite on Paper. Image size: 10...
Category

Mid-20th Century Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Graphite

1903 portrait drawing by Marie Laurencin of her mother
By Marie Laurencin
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Marie Laurencin (French, 1885 – 1956) Portraits of Pauline Laurencin, the artist’s mother with a further study of a child on the reverse Pencil and pastel on paper Signed and dated ‘...
Category

Early 20th Century Post-Impressionist Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Pencil

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Portrait de Femme - Cubist Pencil Drawing, Portrait of Woman by Marie Laurencin
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A beautiful and elegant portrait drawing of a young woman circa 1920 by French artist Marie Laurencin. The subject has her hair tied back and has a scarf flowing across her chest and behind her back. The work has been draw in coloured pencils - the girl's face and features are drawn and filled in grey with red used to colour and emphasise her lips and give blush to her cheeks. The scarf is coloured in blues and greens. A truly wonderful piece. Signature: Signed lower right Dimensions: Framed: 17"x15" Unframed: 10"x8" Provenance: Catherine Gide, "Villa Theo"- Le Lavandou The collection of Andre Gide and Theo van Rysselberghe Around 1905 Georges Braque took Marie Laurencin to the Bateau Lavoir, Picasso's famously run-down studio on Rue Ravignan. Laurencin and Braque had both studied at the Académie Humbert. Laurencin originally aimed to paint on porcelain but Braque had the full measure of his colleague's talent and persuaded her to broaden her horizons. On Rue Ravignan she found herself in an environment where she could thrive, where painting and literature mingled freely in a state, Picasso said, of permanent cross-fertilization, and at a moment when Fauvism was about to be supplanted by Cubism. Soon Guillaume Apollinaire was devoting to her an important chapter in his The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations ( Peintres Cubistes: Méditations Esthétiques). Married to a German baron she fled France during World War I and lived in Spain, where she met Picabia among others, to return to Paris in 1920. Laurencin's first canvases are sharper in tone than her later work. From her Ravignan period she left some paintings of real quality which also record the Bateau Lavoir dwellers, famously Picasso and Fernande Olivier, his mistress. Laurencin would enlarge on this composition by grouping together Picasso, Olivier (who wrote Picasso and his Friends ( Picasso et ses Amis)), the poet Marguerite Gillot, the poet Maurice Chevrier, Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon. The Pont Mirabeau, dear to Apollinaire, can be seen in the background. During her time at Ravignan she also produced burin engravings and woodcuts inspired by fables and romantic street songs. Laurencin had found her style. She became a painter of doe-like girls, merging realism and fantasy like some poets of her generation. Some see Eugène Carrière's influence in her early works, yet her palette shows much more distinct shading. Laurencin created this unique palette, rich in colours chosen for their softness, the full range of which she explored, deftly and firmly stressing tonalities. Famous among her works are the following: Guitar, Child with Violin, Princess, Sirens, Portrait of Jeannot, Portrait of René Dalize, Portrait of Marcel Jouhandeau and Portrait of André Salmon. She also illustrated many books: Marie Laurencin's Fan ( L'Éventail de Marie Laurencin), a collection of poems written for her by writer friends, The Attempt at Love ( La Tentative Amoureuse) and The Poems of André Walter ( Les Poésies d'André Walter) by André Gide, books by Jacques de Lacretelle, André Salmon, Paul Morand, Louise Faure-Favier and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Laurencin also pioneered new approaches to theatre set designing, memorably so in the Cocteau and Milhaud collaboration Does ( Les Biches) for the Ballets Russes in 1924, and What Do Girls Dream Of? ( À Quoi Rêvent les Jeunes Filles?) for the Comédie Française in 1928, even providing themes for the ballet. She exhibited for the first time in 1907 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. In 1912 she showed her work with Robert Delaunay at the Galerie Barbazangues and contributed to the decoration of the Cubist house for the Salon d'Automne. In 1937 at the Petit Palais, Laurencin provided an exemplary sample of her work, including Portrait (1904), Portrait of a Young Woman in a Pink and Black Hat, two canvases executed in 1908 and 1909 and both entitled Guillaume Apollinaire and his Friends (referring to the Picasso circle), Flowers, Two Sisters, Marie Laurencin in Blue (1936), Game of Badminton, Flower Pot, Blue Angel (1929), Young Girls with a Mandolin...
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Early 20th Century Modern Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Marie Laurencin portrait drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Marie Laurencin portrait drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Marie Laurencin in paper, crayon, ink and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Post-Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Marie Laurencin portrait drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Antonio Lopez, and Michael William Eggleston. Marie Laurencin portrait drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $4,137 and tops out at $29,030, while the average work can sell for $7,110.
Questions About Marie Laurencin Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
  • 1stDibs ExpertJanuary 19, 2025
    Marie Laurencin is famous for being an artist. She is best known for her enchanting portraits of women and young girls. The Parisian artist was linked to avant-garde Cubism, yet she endeavored to disassociate herself from the movement. She instead drew on the Impressionist style of Pierre-Auguste Renoir in her paintings and prints and created poetic, sensual images of women in Fauvism’s subdued pastels. Find a collection of Marie Laurencin art on 1stDibs.

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