Marie Laurencin
Selbstbildnis, 1920

Alfred Flechtheim and Marie Laurencin

Marie Laurencin is a painter and graphic artist known for her idiosyncratic pictorial language. Her many pictures of people share unmistakable body and facial features – tall, slim figures created in sweeping lines with pronounced oval faces, deep-set almond-shaped eyes and geometrical noses. A certain affinity with Cubism is apparent in the way she broke down figures and objects into abstract shapes and coloured surfaces. From 1907 on she was close friends with the protagonists of this movement, George Braque and Pablo Picasso. That same year she sent her first works to the Salon des Indépendants and in 1912 exhibited in La Section d’Or at the Galerie Barbazanges – both meeting places of many Cubists in Paris. Despite being personally close to this circle Laurencin retained an artistic distance. The French writer and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), with whom she had a relationship from 1907–12, propagated the independence of her style in his general survey 'Les Peintres cubistes' that was published in 1913.

“We have lost the war, but we have gained Maire”, a report in ‘Querschnitt’ in 1921 read on the occasion of Laurencin’s successful exhibition at the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim in Berlin. Flechtheim bought his first picture from her in 1909, 'La Toilette des jeunes filles' (1911) and, in 1913, she signed an agreement with him. Flechtheim had a number of paintings by Laurencin in his later flat in Berlin, including 'Alcools' (1913). While in exile in London, he organised two exhibitions of the artist’s works – in 1934, 'Flower Paintings' at the Galerie Fred Mayor, with 17 paintings and, in 1936, at the Galerie Geoffrey Agnew, a London art dealer colleague. At the same time in France the artist supported Flechtheim’s application to become a naturalised citizen which was ultimately refused. The continuously positive reception of Laurencin’s work in Germany only started to diminish following the cultural-political re-orientation brought on by the National Socialists.

Marie Laurencin’s letter of support for Flechtheim’s application for naturalisation:

«ML. Mon cher Alfred. Nulle mieux que moi ne connait vos efforts pour soutenir et faire de la propagande pour l’art français. Personellement [sic] vous m’avez rendu de réels services et votre amour de la peinture française et de la cuisine française et des vins français vous fait spirituellement des nôtres. Votre Marie Laurencin. 1 rue Savargnan de Brazza, Paris 7e»

(ML. My dear Alfred. Nobody better than I knows the effort you have made to support and champion French art. Personally, you have done me a genuine service, and your love of French painting and French cuisine and French wine make you, in spirit, one of us. Your Marie Laurencin. 1 rue Savargnan de Brazza, Paris 7e.)