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| Birth Name(s) : Charmy |
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Full Charmy Biography
Émilie Charmy' ("shar-mee") (1878-1974) was a woman artist in France’s early avant-garde. She worked closely with Fauve artists like Henri Matisse, and was active in exhibiting her artworks in Paris, particularly with Berthe Weill. Currently, the Friends of Émilie Charmy are working to recover scholarly documents, images, and artworks by Émilie Charmy as a means of recognizing the artist’s talent and relevance to contemporary feminist issues in art history.
Émilie Charmy was born on April 2, 1878 in Saint Etienne, France. She was born into the moyenne bourgeoisie (literally, the “average” bourgeoisie). Her grandfather was the Bishop of Toulouse, and her father owned an iron foundry. Although her family enjoyed financial stability, she had quite a complicated family life. (Perry, 21) Émilie was left to the care of wet nurses and caretakers in nearby St-Priest en Jarez at least until the age of four, which was a practice that was becoming increasingly rare as modern Rousseauian notions of a “natural” family was gaining in popularity. (Émilie would later do the same to her own son, Edmond, which will be further discussed in the “Charmy and Gender roles” section.) Émilie’s father was a morphine addict and both of her parents passed within several years of one another. By 1893, Émilie became orphaned at the age of 15.
Charmy primarily painted women in domestic or bourgeois settings, as well as focusing on flower and still-life paintings. (Perry,25) There is a great sense of abstraction in her images, and a number of different art critics have offered multiple perspectives. In regards to Charmy’s nude paintings, Gill Perry proposes that Charmy is intentionally trying to restrict the viewer from the intimate scenes that she depicts; (Perry,25) hence, the use of abstracted lines and suggestions of color are meant to bound the subject to an alternate realm from reality. Perry cites Interior at Saint-Etienne and La Loge as two examples. According to Perry, Charmy was essentially at the fore in creating a new iconography of the female nude, within a new, modern context.
Charmy’s style has been closely aligned with the Fauve movement (literally translates to “wild beasts”), which was a term applied to a group of loosely associated artists. Hence, “Les Fauves” did not work as a structured artistic alliance, but it was carried out by the efforts of Henri Matisse. It has been confirmed that Charmy was friendly with Matisse and other artists in the Fauve movement, but again, it is difficult to establish what type of connection she had with the artists. In any case, it is obvious that Charmy was influenced by the aesthetics of other ] and Expressionist artists.
Shari Benstock recounts that early 20th century French women’s lifestyles “lagged far behind their American and English peers in their efforts to gain political and legal equality.” She notes that French women did not enjoy voting or equal pay rights until 1944, and explains that the most influential factors in a woman’s life were the church, and Rousseauian ideals of a traditional family unit. (Perry,85) If a woman were to have a career, it was limited to education. (Perry,23)
In fact, Charmy was almost scorned by her art dealer, Berthe Weil, because she viewed Charmy’s relationship with her son Edmond as distant and unnatural. (Perry,83) Edmond, like Émilie, was placed in the care of paid nurses and carers until the age of fourteen. Although this was acceptable during Émilie’s childhood, this practice was becoming increasingly rare as traditional roles of motherhood were becoming more popular. In one biography, Edmond notes that “while some mothers glory in their offspring, Charmy hid hers jealously. This newly born knew neither the disorder of the studio nor the smell of paint.” (Perry,84) What is particularly interesting to note is that despite Charmy’s interest in using female models as subjects for her paintings, she avoided the mother-and-child theme that was becoming increasingly popular, especially with contemporary artists like Mary Cassatt. (Perry,85)
Women artists were generally banned from art studios or academies during sessions with live models, so many women painted bourgeois life by default. Yet, Charmy’s work exhibits an interest in painting female models and prostitutes. Such images of women are common among male artists like Degas, but were rare among women artists. Most were interested in painting an idyllic view of women and their children.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why Charmy strove away from the mother-and-child subject. Perhaps Charmy was trying to shed her reputation from ascribed notions of what was “feminine”, or perhaps she was simply uninterested in that realm of family life. For whatever reason, Charmy’s choice in avoiding the topic is an interesting juxtaposition to expectations in her contemporary context. |
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