You know Coco Chanel as the woman who saw life in black and white, or was that clothes, or perhaps both? She was also the woman who famously said, “My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.” While Chanel created an iconic life for herself, she completely dismissed the creation of another woman. That woman was Marie Laurencin, who moved in the same Parisian avant-garde world as Chanel. In 1923, the two came together for what would become Portrait of Mademoiselle Chanel. While Chanel liked Laurencin, she certainly did not like the work Laurencin produced.
At the time, Laurencin was entering her prime as a portrait artist. But instead of capturing Chanel as the sharp, disciplined, difficult, charismatic force she was, Laurencin painted her in a soft and rosy light, as the Laurencin woman. That may have pleased most, but this was Coco Chanel. The pioneering French fashion designer did not care for an avatar that depicted her as languid, with a white poodle in her lap, a second dog leaping toward a dove, and a black scarf cutting across a palette of misty pinks, blues, and greens. The portrait may have captured Chanel’s face, but it missed her aura by a mile.
Coco Chanel was portrayed as exactly the kind of woman she had spent her life refusing to be. In Chanel’s mind, the portrait should have conveyed authority, modernity, and polish. Instead, Laurencin gave her softness, sentiment, and dreamlike femininity. Chanel reacted strongly and refused to buy the painting. Laurencin, however, refused to budge or repaint it. Proudly refusing to alter a single brushstroke, she reportedly told intermediaries that Chanel was reportedly, ‘a peasant from Auvergne’
Chanel could not have cared less, but the artwork had its own destiny. It appeared in a 1947 publication under a title connected to Woman with Dog, and by 1951, it was already published as Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel. It later entered the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection orbit before eventually becoming part of the Musée de l’Orangerie’s holdings.
The irony of it all is delicious. While Coco Chanel completely snubbed the painting, Karl Lagerfeld later referenced Laurencin’s image of Chanel for Chanel collections, including Spring 2009 ready-to-wear and Spring 2011 couture. Whoever said art is eternal knew exactly what they were talking about.
