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L'Estaque

Painting of coastal town seen through leafy branches, blue sea and sky fill background.

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  • Painting of coastal town seen through leafy branches, blue sea and sky fill background.

Date:

c. 1910

Artist:

Émilie Charmy
French, 1880–1974

About this artwork

Émilie Charmy was among the first women to exhibit paintings in the Fauvist style. Traveling to rugged sites on France’s Mediterranean coast, such as L’Estaque, depicted here, she created landscapes suffused with emotion and subjective expression. Laying down vibrant color in broad unstructured planes, she composed the scene as a collection of loosely joined organic forms. The swelling and tapering shapes along the composition’s edges produce a dynamic sense of movement that dissipates at the center, where we glimpse the calm waters of the Bay of Marseille.

Charmy was celebrated during her lifetime, but the accolades she received feel wildly gendered today. In 1921, for example, a French writer described her as an artist who “sees like a woman and paints like a man…from the one she takes grace and from the other strength, and this is what makes her such a strange and powerful painter who holds our attention.”

Status

On View, Gallery 391

Department

Modern Art

Artist

Émilie Charmy

Title

L'Estaque

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1905–1915

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Sign: l.r.: E. Charmy

Dimensions

57.3 × 73.7 cm (22 1/2 × 29 in.)

Credit Line

Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection

Reference Number

1931.518

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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