Some 20 years ago I lived in Chicago, that beautiful city on the lake. I use to walk up and down Michigan Avenue to go to work and loved to have lunch at Neiman Marcus. We had season tickets to the Chicago Lyric Opera and we would wear our tuxedos each time. Our apartment was on State Parkway near the old Playboy Mansion turned into a university building of some kind.
There was a gallery which sold art work and they always had the most interesting stuff. One day my eye caught sight of La femme en noir ( the lady in black) by René Gruau, who is the great fashion illustrator of the XXth century. Still celebrated today despite having died in 2004 in extreme old age.
He was not French as his name might lead you to believe but Italian, an aristocrat from Rimini that little town on the Adriatic just a few kilometers north of our beloved Pesaro. It is also the town where Federico Fellini the great Italian movie producer comes from.
Gruau had an interesting life to say the least, born Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli in Rimini, Italy, on Feb. 4, 1909, he was the son of an an Italian count, though his true muse was his aristocratic French mother, Maria Gruau, whose name he took. He showed a talent for drawing in his teens, and in his 20's he moved to Paris and began doing illustrations for fashion magazines like Femina, Marie Claire and Vogue. He spent World War II in Lyon, where Marie Claire moved during the Second World War and the German occupation of France.
His career took off after the war when he met Christian Dior. In 1947 Gruau created the Miss Dior image. In 1948 he moved briefly to New York, where he worked for Harper's Bazaar. In the years that followed he worked from his home in Cannes, he did fashion drawings for major couture houses, including Pierre Balmain, Jacques Fath, Balenciaga, Givenchy and Rochas.
Clothes were the focus of his work, but the women he drew often seemed to come alive. As is the case in La Femme en Noir.
Recently the gouache painting of La Femme en Noir sold at Christie's New York for $146,000 USD.
I have the lithographe, not worth as much but just as stunning.
Recently the gouache painting of La Femme en Noir sold at Christie's New York for $146,000 USD.
I have the lithographe, not worth as much but just as stunning.
| Artist | René Gruau | |
| Title | La femme en Noir | |
| Medium | Lithographe | |
| Size | 45 x 34.3 in. / 114.3 x 87 cm. | |
| Year | 1980 - | |
| Description | RENE GRUAU (1909-2004) La Femme En Noir, circa 1980 lithographe 45 x 34¼ in. (114.3 x 87 cm.) signed lower left |
a stunning piece of work, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we lived in Chicago at the same time, went to the LOC in the same seasons.
I lived in Chicago from 1992-94.
ReplyDeleteI was there from 1989-2000
ReplyDeleteOh, my so you lived in Chicago at the time I was there. I worked at the new Prudential Plaza building. What a small world.
ReplyDelete