Fralin Museum of Art opens Emilie Charmy exhibition

The Fralin Museum of Art presents the first US retrospective of the work of Émilie Charmy (1878-1974), on view from Aug. 23, 2013 through Feb. 2, 2014.

The Fralin will rediscover this distinctive and provocative artist, one of the most original female voices of modern art in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. Approximately forty paintings—the majority of which have never appeared in the US—will present this artist, an exhibitor at the legendary 1913 Armory Show, in a new light. Charmy’s painting engaged with major artistic currents, from impressionism and post-impressionism to fauvism, before World War I, and she pursued an expressive, modernist naturalism thereafter.

From the very beginning of her career, Charmy was defined according to the notion of the femme-peintre, a term whose currency in the early 20th century signaled a relative expansion in the visibility of womenartists among dealers, collectors, and critics interested in modern French art. Yet what made Charmy’s art distinctive and provocative in its own time was that it seemed to elude simple gendered expectations. The critics were unanimous in finding virile qualities in her expressive, physical, rough style, but surely they were also reacting to her handling of subject matter, particularly in the nudes, some of which developed a remarkably frank and complex presentation of sexuality.

Charmy’s success continued through the 1930s until World War II swept away most of her personal and professional networks. Though she continued to develop her work in new directions, notably with self-portraits that featured a curious and compelling fusion of introspection and masquerade, Charmy fell out of the public eye. Only recently has the artist started to resurface, and The Fralin is pleased to present this retrospective of her work, developed with the support of major collectors and museums in the United States, France, and Great Britain. www.virginia.edu/artmuseum