{"id":3596,"date":"2017-11-16T23:53:37","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T23:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/?p=3596"},"modified":"2017-11-16T23:53:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T23:53:37","slug":"gabrielle-buffet-picabia-eyes-of-the-avant-garde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.suzannechurchill.com\/eng394-f17\/2017\/11\/16\/gabrielle-buffet-picabia-eyes-of-the-avant-garde\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia: Eyes of the Avant-Garde"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia might be the most quoted figure of the avant-garde, yet she is one of the least studied. Her name is most often found in the footnotes of books, next to citations for her detailed comments and stories on the charismatic male leaders of the Dada movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was born in France, in 1881 and grew up with musical aspirations and attended Schola Cantorum, a liberal center of music in France, directed by Vincent d\u2019Indy. While she was studying and practicing music, d\u2019Indy inspired her to practice liberating and non-traditional forms of music, which she carried into her writing and art criticism later in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gabrielle Buffet met Francis Picabia in 1908 and they were married in 1909. Buffet influenced and accelerated Picabia\u2019s desire and transition to produce more imaginative, reflective, and abstract art. In 1910, not long after the Picabia\u2019s married, they first met Marcel Duchamp, who became a long term friend, with whom they had an artistic and personal relationship. Buffet credits the two men for inventing Dada.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Scholars value Buffet most for her unbiased and unselfish analysis of the period, but also for her \u201cexperimental prose and verse\u201d (Kamenish 47). Buffet\u2019s writing embodies the teasing spirit of the Dada movement, especially in pieces like her <\/span>Petit Manifeste<\/span><\/i>. Additionally, in two of her essays, \u201cArthur Cravan and American Dada\u201d and \u201cSome memories of Pre-Dada: Picabia and Duchamp,\u201d Buffet reflects the ambiguity and playfulness that characterized Dada. Both of these essays end without a solid conclusion, and the fate of the subject of each is also left uncertain. <\/span><\/p>\n

Often the social atmosphere of the avant-garde and Dada movement involved lots of people and drinking, especially at places like the Arensberg apartment; this most likely where Buffet and Mina Loy first met. Many avant-garde artists and writers gathered at the home of Louise and Walter Arensberg in New York. Buffet and Picabia first attended Arensberg\u2019s apartment as guests of Duchamp. Here Buffet would have become acquainted with Mina Loy, and other artists including, Arthur Cravan, Germaine Everling (Picabia\u2019s mistress), Albert Gleizes and wife Juliette Gleizes, Man Ray, and many more (Kamenish 41).<\/span><\/p>\n

Although there is not much evidence of a close friendship between Buffet and Loy, they agreed that Duchamp\u2019s intentions in his scandalous and harsh remarks about women deserved questioning. Ironically, their opinion of a different man, Arthur Cravan, whom Loy had a romantic relationship with, ended any friendship they had. After Buffet \u201cpublished a memoir of Cravan that was largely complementary but expressed doubt about the reasons for his disappearance, Mina cut her dead\u201d (Burke 381). <\/span><\/p>\n

In Buffet\u2019s later years, she participated in the French Resistance and sheltered Allied parachutists, escaped prisoners of war, and hid documents for the Belgian secret service. Despite her political passions later in life, Buffet remains to be praised for her \u201cinvaluable reflections on the rise and spread of the avant-garde on both continents\u201d (Kamenish 38). Her work is successful in providing professors, students, and scholars internationally a window into the social, cultural, and political world of primary figures during her lifetime.<\/span><\/p>\n

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