Bibliography
Catherine Lepdor (ed.), Eugène Grasset. L’art et l’ornement, exh. cat. Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Milan, 5 Continents Editions, 2011: fig. 151.
Anne Murray-Robertson, Grasset pionnier de l’Art nouveau, Lausanne, Éditions 24Heures et Bibliothèque des Arts, 1981: 116.
The June 1898 special issue of the avant-garde review La Plume was a homage to the sculptor Alexandre Falguière. The review held an exhibition of his work in the foyer of the Nouveau-Cirque, a popular Parisian circus venue.
Among the many artists and writers called on for material for the special issue, Eugène Grasset was an obvious choice. He submitted a watercolour allegory of sculpture as a young woman in a smock, holding a mallet and chisel, her loose hair held back by a band. The swathes of bright colour edged with thick black lines suggest a stained-glass window. Against the backdrop of a golden sky partly hidden by an orange cloud, the modern young woman leans on a statue of a prostrate man holding his hands to his temples.
The review’s chief editor, Léon Deschamps, immediately grasped the potential of the powerful image by the artist widely spoken of in Paris as the master of Art nouveau. He chose to produce it in a number of formats, using it for the exhibition poster and the review’s frontispiece as well as a chromolithography print. Grasset signed a limited run of 100 copies on imperial Japan paper, which Deschamps – an astute businessman – added to his catalogue of deluxe editions, albums and prints.
The review promoted Falguière’s work in a context that was to mark art history when, at the 1898 Salon, the Société des Gens de Lettres turned down Auguste Rodin’s Hommage à Balzac and instead gave the commission to none other than Falguière himself.