Emilie Charmy:

A Woman’s Body As Seen By Herself

Case Study #2

For Research Methodologies

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Low-Residency MFA Program

Andrea Ray

Nancy Murphy Spicer

Fall 2017

1
 Untitled (Your body is a battleground)​ by Barbara Kruger, 19891

In her 1989 work, ​Untitled (Your body is a battleground)​, Barbara Kruger articulated what has

been true throughout time and continues to be true in 2017 as evidenced by the parade of

sexual harassment, abuse, and assault cases2 that have been revealed on almost a daily basis

in the United States. The female body is the site of degradation, oppression and violence.

Women have found many strategies to attempt to claim control of their bodies and claim

self-definition. One such strategy for the female artist is self-portraiture. This paper will will focus

on a work by French artist, Emilie Charmy, entitled ​Nude Holding Her Breast​ painted in 1925 as

1
https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger
2
Almuktar, Sarah, MIchael Gold, and Larry Buchanan. “After Weinstein: 50 Men Accused of Sexual
Misconduct and Their Fall From Power.” ​www.nytimes.com,​ December 22, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/us/men-accused-sexual-misconduct-weinstein.html?_r=0

2
the culmination of a series of self-portraits that depict Charmy’s unfolding empowered (possibly

bisexual)3 self.

Nude Holding Her Breast​, 1920-25

About Emilie Charmy

Charmy was a painter based in Paris from 1902 till her death in 1974. Her work ranged from

landscape4 to still life to figurative with a selection of paintings that were self-portraiture. Charmy

3
Perry, p. XX
4
The single Charmy painting in the Art Institute of Chicago collection is a landscape painting entitled
L’Estaque​, 1910, and is currently on view in Gallery 391 A
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/9010?search_no=1&index=0
3
was part of a new sense of agency amongst artists at the start of the 20th century that signaled

“the shift from images that are designed to please, breaking no taboos...and ones that desire to

tell the truth.”5 Over one period of 15 years between 1905-1925, Charmy’s self-portraits

depicted stages of disrobing until she was finally nude. Once in the realm of nude self-portraits,

Charmy then painted herself in ecstatic, erotic states. At times, those works were titled as

self-portraits but as they became more explicit Charmy switched to titling works as ​Nudes​. Art

historians surmise that the woman depicted was Charmy herself.6 It is believed these paintings

were made for herself or a limited private audience and were never shown in public.7 “While the

more public, marketable, nudes are often depicted in stylised and erotic poses, others from the

same period are depicted in unselfconscious and less passive poses.”8 Art historian Gill Perry

describes the work that is the topic of this paper as “a representation of a woman’s body, as

seen by herself.”9

​ arly 20th Century Paris Art World

When Charmy arrived in Paris, it was in the midst of the era of the “New Woman,” a rich time of

burgeoning freedoms and greater access to education and opportunities for women. Long

denied a place in art academies, women were starting to be allowed into the most esteemed

institutions for study. Their presence was not entirely accepted, however, and signaled concern

in some aspects of the Parisian art world that the presence of women would degrade the quality

of the art.10

5
Borzello, p 229
6
Perry, Gill. ​Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde​. Manchester University Press, 1995, p. 117
7
Perry, p. 129
8
Perry, p. 130
9
Perry, p. 130
10
Perry, p 120
4
Charmy soon found her place amongst some of the now well-regarded male artists of the day.

She began to show her work in the important salons alongside the work of Matisse, Picasso,

Modigliani as well as other women artists such as Susan Valadon and Marie Laurencin. She

was considered by critics to be one of the great painters in Paris.11 Charmy and the other

women who were receiving recognition were dubbed ​Las Femmes Peintures​. And while

Charmy’s identity as a woman painter was specifically affirmed, critics found her manner of

painting did not align with her gender. “​Émilie Charmy, it would appear, 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."12 ​Many of the works Charmy

exhibited and sold were landscapes of French villages on the Mediterranean Sea, still lifes and

portraits of herself and her colleagues. This included her dear friend and possible lover, the

writer Colette whose writing is thought to influence Charmy’s paintings. Charmy was sometimes

referred to as “the Colette of the painting world”13 ​Her son acknowledged that she was likely

bisexual and had a very close relationship with Colette.

In the early part of the twentieth century, psychoanalysis was just becoming known and likely

influenced the desire to know self and hence may have encouraged more self-revelatory

self-portraiture. We can see the progression in Charmy’s work very clearly (see Appendix:

Progression of Emilie Charmy Self-Portraits). In Charmy’s work we see a woman changing in

her view of herself and more and more willing to describe that change in her work. However,

Charmy did not exhibit the more explicit paintings and did tend to title them as “​Nude​” rather

than “​Self-Portrait​.” She kept them in her private collection and likely shared them only with her

11
Perry, p. 100
12
Perry, p. 100
13
SOURCE
5
inner circle of friends, colleagues and lovers. ​While Charmy had a strong reputation in 1920s

Paris, she is one of the women artists of that time who art history has overlooked. Her work has

recently been brought back to public view through a solo exhibition and catalog led by Matthew

Affron, current Curator of Modern Art at Philadelphia Museum of Art and former Curator at The

Fralin Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Power and Freedom of Self-Portraiture: ​Nude Holding Her Breast

Matthew Affron, curator of a 2013 solo exhibition of Charmy’s work described her work as a

“remarkably frank and complex representation of sexuality.” He noted that her work upended

gendered expectations of the day describing her work as embodying “both feminine and viril qualities

in her expressive, physical, rough style.” 14

In this painting, we see a woman fully naked

seemingly in a seated position. There is no

sense of her location, no details about the

space; she almost appears to float in a

semi-dark space alone. The figure is unaware

of a viewer as she revels in her own body. Her

left arm rests relaxed next to her side while her

right arm reaches up to grasp her left breast.

The way the breast is painted indicates a lifting

and pressure to the flesh of the left breast. The right breast rests comfortably in the crook of the

bent right arm. Color and lightness highlight the left breast in particular and draw the viewer’s

14
Affron, Matthew with contributions by Susan Betzer and Rita Felski. ​Emilie Charmy​. 2013, Penn State
Press for The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, 2013.
6
attention. From the face of the figure, we see a woman absorbed in herself, in her body. Her

head is bent slightly to her right and a little bit back. Her eyes are closed and her mouth slightly

open. It is clearly an image of self-pleasure.

The painting seems have been swiftly and vigorously made but with care to small details that

add significantly to its meaning. There are two related curling marks: one describes a lock of

hair falling loosely around the figure’s right eye which is in relationship to the nearby upward curl

of the right side of her mouth. These two gestures point to the pleasure and abandon that are

depicted. The mouth is further defined by rich red slashes of paint which indicate a slack lower

lip describing the pleasure of the moment. Most of the painting is made with quick, simplified

strokes but when describing the facial features, the nipples and the crotch, there is much more

nuanced definition.

Art historian Gill Perry is convinced that, while titled ​Nude Holding her Breast​, this is a portrait of

Charmy, “a representation of a woman’s body, as seen by herself.”15 Charmy does not seem to

be interested in explicit description but rather describing the affect of the moment. We don’t see

where she is and there is no evidence of what has provoked her ecstasy apart from her own

body. This seems to be a demonstration of her power and independence.

This image is in contrast to the idealized female form of the day which featured a “slim

elongated female shape with cropped hair...a symbol of one aspect of the supposed

emancipated ‘modern’ woman now liberated from corsets and elaborate coiffure.”16 In line with

this shift of literal constraints on women’s bodies, there was a shift in approaches to portraiture

15
Perry, p 130
16
Perry p 113
7
 away from presenting idealized

or mythologized forms and

toward a focus on true rendition.

range of forms of

representation. In ​The Blue

Room (Odalisque), 1923

(above)​, Susan Valadon placed

her own full-bodied figure in

bright casual clothing and

smoking a cigarette, in the art historically familiar scene of the odalisque. Other women were

stretching the boundaries in the realm of gender representation. Claude Cahun and Gluck (see

here in Self-Portrait with a Cigarette, 1925) were

among others who created self-portraits of

themselves with strongly masculine signifiers. (It

seems cigarettes were also a symbol of liberation.)

“Women artists were turning their gaze on

themselves. They were not merely interested in

what their bodies looked like, but also seem to have

been reaching for some kind of inner reality.”18 This

certainly seems to be true for Charmy with this

self-portrait. We sense that the figure is fully

experiencing bodily sensation and a reality that is

17
Borzello, p 150
18
Borzello, p. 158
8
not available to us as the viewers. While Valadon and Gluck made work that was intended to

“refuse an eroticised male ‘gaze,’”19 Charmy was indifferent to the male gaze with her inward

focus. As noted in a critic’s review of her work,​ ​“Charmy is a great free painter; beyond

influences and without method, she creates her own separate kingdom where the flights of her

sensibility rule alone.” 20

The Power of Constituting the Self in Self-Portraiture

“These nude self-portraits are evidence of the curiosity with which

women artists were turning their gaze on themselves.

They were not merely interested in what their bodies looked like,

but also seem to have been reaching for some inner reality.”21

Theorist Hanna Pitkin states that “power is related etymologically to the French word ​pouvoir

and the Latin ​potere​, both of which mean ​to be able​. That suggests that power is a something

— anything — which makes or renders somebody able to do, capable of doing something.

Power is capacity, potential, ability, or wherewithal” 22 Charmy’s mastery with paint, the greater

openness of her time and her own willingness to fearlessly paint her experience all come

together to give us an image of a woman that exposes her internal experience of her body.

Looking at Judith Butler’s theories around gender construction, it is interesting to note her

alignment of power with the word “medium”:​ ​“Power is the medium...it orchestrates the way in

which we affectively reassure ourselves of our identity or give it up.”23 Charmy used paint as the

medium to gain power and unfold her identity and her sexuality. Butler goes on to say that “if the

19
Perry, p. 123
20
Perry, p. 100
21
Affron, p.
22
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/
23
Butler, p. 471
9
“cause” of the desire, gesture, and act can be localized within the “self,” of the actor then the

political regulations and disciplinary practices which produce that ostensibly coherent gender

are effectively displaced from view.”24 Charmy used the space of her painting practice to elude

the predominant notions of the day about gender and sexuality and express her true desires

and way of being in the world.

Conclusion

Emilie Charmy is little known but was an influential part of the early 20th century art history

particularly in the realm of self-portraiture. Charmy used the mode to reveal her body to herself

and create freedom and self-definition in terms of her sexuality and her identity.

Charmy’s work while celebrated in the early 20th century, fell out of view and subsequently was

not included in the art historical accounts of the period. In recent years, scholars are remedying

this error. ​“What Charmy’s work deserves is a renewed commitment to a phenomenology of

viewing, a willingness to try to capture the sense of wonder - as well as the historical resonance

- triggered by her often breathtaking images.”25

Charmy’s practice of creating the self through self-portraiture is carried on by modern and

contemporary women artists such as Paula Mondersohn-Becker, Tracey Emin, Nicole

Eisenman, Chantal Joffe, Alice Neel, Maria Lassnig and Marlene Dumas. All of these women

stretch the field of female self-portraiture forward by depicting their bodies in starkly powerful

and realistic ways.

24
Butler, Judith with Diane Price Herndl, ed.​ ​Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and
Criticism, ​Rutgers University Press, 2009, p. 471
25
Affron, p 62

10
 I like self-portraiture because it’s a way of asking questions about yourself,

both about painting and about yourself. What’s going on in your life?

They’re very exciting and you have no boundaries. They can be anything.​ 26

Chantal Joffe, Contemporary British Painter

Note: Appendix follows below highlighting the progression of Charmy’s self-portraits.

26
Video of Chantal Joffe gallery conversation with interns at Peggy Guggenheim Collection
11
Bibliography

Affron, Matthew with contributions by Susan Betzer and Rita Felski.​ Emilie Charmy​. 2013, Penn
State Press for The Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia, 2013.

Almuktar, Sarah, MIchael Gold, and Larry Buchanan. “After Weinstein: 50 Men Accused of
Sexual Misconduct and Their Fall From Power.” ​www.nytimes.com​, December 22, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/us/men-accused-sexual-misconduct-weinstein.
html?_r=0

Arsenault, Nina.” A Manifesto of Living Self-portraiture (Identity, Transformation, and

Borzello, Frances. ​Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self-Portraits​. Thames and Hudson, 1998 and
2016

The Broad Museum website: ​https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger

Butler, Judith with Diane Price Herndl, ed.​ ​Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory
and Criticism, ​Rutgers University Press, 2009.

Perry, Gill. ​Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde: Modernism and ‘Feminine’ Art, 1900
to the Late 1920s​, Manchester University Press, 1995.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ​https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/

Peggy Guggenheim Collection video of Chantal Joffe gallery conversation with interns at Peggy
Guggenheim Collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q05PlaKvxJg

12
Appendix: Progression of Emilie Charmy Self-Portraits

The following images show the progression of Charmy’s self-portraits from 1907-1925. With the

successive images, we see an unfolding of freedom and self-possession as Charmy depicts herself firstly

as a stylish woman of the era with her entire body covered in an Oriental gown through gradual states of

undress to completely nude. And, finally, Charmy depicts herself in autoerotic poses, pleasuring herself

and seeming to revel in her body post-climax.

13
1907

Woman in a Japanese Dressing Gown​, 1907

14
1910

Self-Portrait​, 1910

15
1915

​Self-Portrait Undressed​, 1915

16
1916

Nude in a Blue Ensemble​, 1916

17
1916-1918

Self-Portrait in an Open Dressing Gown​, 1916-1918

18
1919

Self-Portrait, 1919

19
1922

Jeune femme​, 1920

20
1925

Nude on Red Couch, 1925

21
1920-1925

Nude Holding Her Breast​, 1920-25

22
1950

Charmy in her Paris studio

23