ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Claiming the Professional Frame: Lucie Ranvier-Chartier's Gendered Strategies of Artistic Self-Representation (1890–1932)

• In Event: Mediating Knowledge: Self(re)presentation of a European Scholar Across Political Regimes 2

English Abstract

The French painter Lucie Louise Henriette Ranvier-Chartier (1867-1932), though only recently rediscovered in art history (Kelly, 2021), was a highly successful and widely exhibited artist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artist maintained a strong professional presence, exhibiting in major venues in Paris (including official Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, the Orientalist Salon; and the Salon des Femmes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs et Décorateurs) as well as across Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and New York. The artist’s ego documents, which are housed in the archives of Musée des Années Trente, Paris, record 427 of her paintings as well as 23 of the artist’s solo exhibitions in Paris—some of which were held at Galerie de Bourgogne, Gallery Aux Amis Des Livres du XVI, Galerie de Marsan, Galerie Aubert and Gallery Thiron. In 1909, during a solo exhibition in Paris entitled ‘Exposition des Oeuvres du Peintre Orientaliste Ranvier Chartier’, the artist sold 33 works of art―demonstrating the demand for this artists’ works by collectors. Ranvier-Chartier’s success is further demonstrated by numerous official art prizes and medals, including a bronze medal of honour from the Official Salon in 1911 and bursaries of travel to North Africa. In February 1932, just months before her death, a retrospective of the artist’s works was held at the prestigious Grand Palais in Paris. This major tribute underscores the high esteem in which Ranvier-Chartier and her paintings were held by the art establishment of the time. Through an analysis of her ego documents and art, this paper investigates how Ranvier-Chartier (re)presented her professional self while simultaneously addressing the challenges posed by the masculine art world and the politically charged cross-cultural spaces spanning France, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Author

• Mary Kelly, University College Cork, Ireland