The Museo Picasso Málaga in Spain is currently presenting María Blanchard. A Painter in Spite of Cubism from April 30 - September 29, 2024. The retrospective exhibition is a large presentation on the life and work of the Spanish artist María Blanchard (1881 - 1932), who excelled at portraying the emotional plight of European women in the early 1900s and did not get due credit due to the biased and sexist nature of art history. The Museum addresses this injustice with its presentation of the Cubist painter, curated by José Lebrero Stals, who recently retired as Artistic Director, Museo Picasso Málaga. Stals joins STIR for an interview that sheds light on Blanchard’s morose portraiture of women subjects and the lack of recognition she received in her lifetime.

The art being shown in María Blanchard is organised according to the various eras in the career of the painter. Born into a wealthy family in Santander, Spain, she began studying art in Madrid in her early 20s. At the time, she focused on producing pleasant portraits of the people around her, a far cry from the darker depictions of women she would produce later. In 1909, Blanchard travelled to Paris for the first time, where she met major Cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso, and other key figures such as Diego Rivera, who was experimenting with Cubism at this time. Returning to Spain, she participated in the first Cubist exhibition in Madrid, organised by Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna in 1915. Here, Blanchard was disparaged with sexist criticism from Spanish critics who were entrenched within traditionalism and academicism. This left a deep impression on Blanchard, whose portraiture of women—and even children—had already started to show a profound listlessness a few years prior.

Blanchard would leave Spain for good, returning to Paris that very year, craving what she felt was a more liberal environment and during this second trip, she became fully immersed in the language of Cubism. However, her strict adherence to the fragmentation of Cubism was short-lived. Around 1921, Blanchard would return to a more traditional style, which she would continue to pursue for the rest of her career.

Stals discusses the moroseness in Blanchard’s painting work, pointing to the cultural milieu she observed in Paris, even as Blanchard herself connected Paris to a sense of creative liberation and intellectual progress. However, as the curator reminds us, “Not all of Paris in the 1920s corresponds to the stereotype that history has bequeathed us: A crazy, festive, sexually liberated city dedicated to celebrating the joys of living. We must remember that the city of light has to recover from the disasters of the First World War in which hundreds of thousands of men died. In its streets, disabled people, African migrants, and helpless women struggle with poverty and discouragement.”

The curator believes that Blanchard’s gaze and sensitivity are sympathetic to the feminine idea of caregiving and that her subjects (especially children) aren’t merely downtrodden but also deeply hopeful. Specifically, he points to her post-Cubist work, saying that it is “…not exempt from religiosity and devotion to the triumph of goodness over misfortune.”

Being an expatriate, not dedicating herself to the ‘minor arts, which was what (women) were supposed to do, and also not fitting in with the roles of muse, model, lover or partner of the genius on duty, took its toll on her. – José Lebrero Stals, former Artistic Director, Museo Picasso Málaga

Going beyond the criticism Blanchard received in Spain, Stals holds the larger European academic environment responsible for the refusal to acknowledge Blanchard as the first Spanish woman artist to take up Cubism. He mentions that the prejudice against her was only exacerbated by her style, which even during the height of her involvement in the Cubist movement never truly conformed to the orthodoxy of Cubism. In Stals’ words, “Being an expatriate, not dedicating herself to the ‘minor arts’, which was what (women) were supposed to do, and also not fitting in with the roles of muse, model, lover or partner of the genius on duty, took its toll on her.”

Fortunately, as Stals points out, most contemporary interpretations of her work (some collected in the exhibition catalogue that accompanies the show) place an emphasis on her perspective and self-advocacy, despite the pressure she came under to conform to stereotypes. The curator considers Blanchard’s legacy to be a valuable reference point for artists today and the exhibition will join Museo Picasso Málaga’s other shows on lesser-known female artists in shining a light on her practice.

‘María Blanchard. A Painter in Spite of Cubism’ is on view at the Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain from April 30 - September 29, 2024.