| Séraphine Louis | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 3, 1864 Arsy (Oise), France |
| Died | December 11, 1942 (aged 78) Villers-sous-Erquery (Oise), France |
| Nationality | French |
| Field | painting |
| Training | self-taught |
| Movement | Naïve art |
| Patrons | Wilhelm Uhde |
Séraphine Louis, known as "Séraphine de Senlis" ("Séraphine of Senlis") (1864–1942), was a French painter in the naïve style. Self-taught, she was inspired by her religious faith and by stained-glass church windows and other religious art. The intensity of her images, both in colour and in replicative designs, are sometimes interpreted as a reflection of her own psyche, walking a tightrope between ecstasy and mental illness.
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Séraphine Louis was born in Arsy (Oise) on September 3, 1864. Her father was a manual laborer and her mother came from a farmworking background. Séraphine's mother died on her first birthday and her father, who remarried, also died before she was seven; at which point, she came under the charge of her eldest sister. She first worked as a shepherdess but, by 1881, she was engaged as a domestic worker at the convent of the Sisters of Providence in Clermont (Oise). Beginning in 1901, she was employed as a housekeeper for middle class families in the town of Senlis.
Alongside her arduous day jobs, Séraphine painted by candlelight, largely in secret isolation, until her considerable body of work was discovered in 1912 by German art collector Wilhelm Uhde.[1] While in Senlis, Uhde saw a still-life of apples at his neighbor's house and was astonished to learn that Séraphine, his housecleaner, was the artist.[2] His support had barely begun to lift her horizons when he was forced to leave France in August 1914; the war between France and Germany had made him an unwelcome outsider in Senlis, much as Séraphine was, given her eccentric persona. They only reestablished contact in 1927 when Uhde – back in France and living in Chantilly - visited an exhibition of local artists in Senlis and, seeing Séraphine's work, realized that she had survived and her art had flourished. Under Uhde's patronage, Séraphine began painting large canvases as large as two meters high, and she achieved prominence as the naïve painter of her day. In 1929, Uhde organized an exhibition, "Painters of the Sacred Heart," that featured Séraphine's art, launching her into a period of financial success she had never known - and was ill prepared to manage. Then, in 1930, with the effects of the Great Depression destroying the finances of her patrons, Uhde had no choice but to stop buying her paintings.
In 1932, Séraphine was admitted for "chronic psychosis" at Clermont's lunatic asylum, where her artistry found no outlet. Although Uhde reported that she had died in 1934[3], Séraphine actually lived until 1942 in a hospital annex at Villers-sous-Erquery, where she died friendless and alone[2]. She was buried in a common grave.
Uhde continued to exhibit her work: in 1932, at the exhibition "The Modern Primitives" in Paris; in 1937-38 in an exhibition titled "The Popular Masters of Reality" which showed in Paris, Zurich, and New York (at MoMA); in 1942, at the "Primitives of the 20th Century" exhibition in Paris, and finally, in 1945, in a solo exhibition of her work in Paris.
Séraphine's works are predominantly rich fantasies of intensely repeated and embellished floral arrangements. She used colours and pigments that she made herself from unusual and exotic ingredients she never revealed that have stood the test of time for durable vividness. Her paintings' surfaces have a matte, almost waxy appearance. Sometimes her signature (typically "S. Louis") was carved by knife, revealing a ground of contrasting colour. In some cases, she appears to have signed her paintings before painting them.
Séraphine was an artist consumed by an irrepressible urge to create – "this famous internal necessity of which Kandinsky spoke", terms employed by Bertrand Lorquin, conservator of the Musée Maillol in his introduction to the exhibition "Séraphine Louis dite Séraphine de Senlis" at the Musée Maillol in Paris which ran from October 1, 2008 to May 18, 2009).[4]
Séraphine Louis's paintings are exhibited in the Musée Maillol in Paris, the Musée d'art de Senlis, the Musée d'art naïf in Nice, and the Musée d'Art moderne Lille Métropole in Villeneuve-d'Ascq.
In 2009, the French biographical film Séraphine by director Martin Provost won seven César Awards, including Best Film and Best Actress for Yolande Moreau who starred in the title role. The film explored the relationship between Séraphine and Wilhelm Uhde, from their first encounter in 1912, until the death of Séraphine.[5]