Woman with a Fan Links 2

Links to Blanchard 

María Gutiérrez-Cueto y Blanchard was born in Santander, Spain in 1881 and died in Paris, where she is buried, in 1932. 

Some photos

Blanchard at age 18

By Anonymous - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65187576

This has always been one of my favorite photos of her, as it shows her teaching. She was beloved by her students, especially the Australian student, Maude Sumner, who was with Blanchard when she died.

I like the hint of a smile in this one. I first saw it on a Facebook page, which has about 500 followers.

Links to exhibitions

An exposition at the Reina Sofia Museum:
https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/exhibitions/maria-blanchard

Documentary

The documentary, 26 Rue du depart, era una vez Paris is a documentary in Spanish by Gloria Crespo which examines Blanchard's life with interviews by people today. You can see the first three minutes on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/38234006

A short video at the Santander exhibition (in Spanish with English subtitles) includes interviews with art critic Maria Jose Salazar and others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32WQivz1HOk

On misshapen backs and luck: Spain and the U.S.

Blanchard sometimes said she left Spain because of the prejudice she experienced due to her disability, specifically, the way people would chase her down the street to touch their lottery tickets to her deformed back, believing it would bring them luck. "Only in Spain!" she said, and I nodded, thinking of some of the backward thinking I had seen there, especially in the 1970s. But then, Paul Beauvais found this NYT article about a bat boy who had a misshapen back, supposedly due to a fall:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/nyregion/eddie-bennett-yankees-batboy-cemetery.html

A White Sox player put his hand on the boy's back, believing he was good luck, and the team took him on as its batboy. When they won the Series, he received a ring along with each of the players. Later, in 1921, the Yankees hired him away, for luck, and their wins were attributed to him as well as Babe Ruth. 

My book, Woman with a Fan: On Maria Blanchard, is available from Shanti Arts. 

Woman with a Fan: Links 1

Woman with a Fan: On Maria Blanchard 
Links to works online:

***"Two Sisters" (page 23)
https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/maria-blanchards-two-sisters-by-diane-kendig

I am indebted to Lorette C. Luzajic of Ekphrastic Review who published the poem with the painting.

***"Behave Yourself --Joan of Arc" (p.24)
https://art.rmngp.fr/en/library/artworks/maria-blanchard_sois-sage-dite-aussi-jeanne-d-arc_huile-sur-toile_1917

Blanchard's cubist works are not my favorite, because cubism isn't my favorite, but I love this one with that wry title. If only Joan of Arc could behave herself. If only Blanchard could have and become the schoolteacher in Salamanca as her family wished her to.

***"Seated Woman/Femme Assise" (p.22, sorta)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF3j9UoT27A

This painting actually is in the book, and I am grateful to the Meadows Museum in Dallas, Texas ("The Prado on the Prairie") for their use of it. One of my readers, Rachel Morris, who knows so very much more about art than I do, said, "I love cubism," and I must admit that this little video from the Meadows Museum has helped me to appreciate Blanchard's cubist works immensely.

***"Cubist Still Life" (p.22) 
https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/objects/p.968.32

This painting is at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth. 

***"Child with a Handkerchief/Toothache" (p.34)
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/525232375280902701/

Blanchard actually produced two portraits of children on this theme, and I actually wrote on the child in white, which I will show later. But this pink-dressed child clearly has the same ache going, though she is perhaps a different model.

And speaking of models, my model for this poem is one by Andrew Marvel, though the portrait his is based on seems not to exist any more. Here's his poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48329/the-picture-of-little-t-c-in-a-prospect-of-flowers

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Works in the book which have been reproduced in the book (with permission) can also be found online are "Woman with a Fan," and "The Communicant"  (both at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, where you will find several more of her cubist works) and  "The Ice Cream Cart" (at the Pompideau Museum in Paris)

Next up: photos of Blanchard

My book, "Woman with a Fan," an Intro

 It's been a long time coming. I stumbled up on my subject matter in 1986, a pretty good year in my life, all things considered. I was re-reading a book of prose essays by Federico Garcia Lorca in translation and found myself galvanized by his first short piece, a funeral elegy for a painter named Maria Blanchard. I couldn't find much more about her, just an anecdote in a biography of Diego Rivera, whom she loved and with whom she shared a studio in Paris.

I tried to find her art. The head librarian at the college where I taught, Bob Schirmer, managed to find a book on her at a small college in Connecticut and get a photocopy sent to me. I was so excited to get the package, only to open it and see that in the  black and white photocopies of the day, Blanchard's  paintings looked like Rorschach tests. 

In 2007 trip to Spain, Paul spied her name as we entered the Reina Sofia Museum, and I practically RAN up the stairs to see her huge, "Woman with a Fan." In the gift shop, I found a 10x14 inch, 740 page book of her complete catalogue at the top. I bought it and cradled it on my lap the whole plane ride home. 

My good friend the writer Tom Barlow suggested a blog where I link the art that I've written about, and this series will do that. Later this fall, I hope to also post a few works that are not online. (I will be showing those for the first time at the Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival in October.)

If you don't have a copy of the book and would like to purchase one, my website tells you how to do that: dianekendig.com 

And the publisher, Shanti Arts, has a nice page of info on the book here

See my second blog with links to Blanchard's artwork here.
See my third blog about Maria herself here