Marie Laurencin

Marie Laurencin, a painter, stage designer, and illustrator, joined the circle of Cubist painters in 1907 and exhibited with them, but developed a style completely her own. Her depictions of women and mythological creatures in softly shaded pastels—blues, roses, and greens, punctuated by black—may owe something to her early training in porcelain painting at the Sèvres factory. She produced society portraits in the 1920s, as well as set designs for the Ballets Russes and Comédie Française. Laurencin illustrated many books, including Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1930) and Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes (1944). L’Éventail, a collection of poetry by André Breton and others, was published in her honor in 1922.