Laurencin, Marie

1883 – She was born on the 31st of October this year in Paris, where she was raised by her mother.

1902 – She was always the last in all of her subjects at the Lycée Lamartine; she studied porcelain painting at the Sèvres factory. She later enters the Académie Humbert, where she meets Georges Braque and Georges Lepape.

1907 - Exhibits at Clovis Sagot’s gallery in Montmartre. There, Pablo Picasso introduces her Guillaume Apollinaire, with whom she would be romantically involved until 1913. Throughout the course of their relationship, both would serve as a source of artistic inspiration for the other.

1908 - Group of Artists is purchased by Gertrude Stein, Laurencin’s first sale. The painting is a group portrait of Laurencin, Apollinaire, Picasso and his mistress, Fernande Olivier.

1911 - Exhibits Portrait of Mme Fernande X and Young Girls with the Cubists in Gallery 41 in the Salon des Indépendants. Laurencin also creates the illustrations for the book Un Petit brévaire d’amour. The first such artistic venture, she would later go on to illustrate over eighty books.

1913 – Her relationship with Apollinaire ends, signaling the end of her Cubist-inspired period. Her mother dies. Laurencin set up a contract with the prominent art dealer Paul Rosenberg, who also handles Matisse, Picasso, and Braque. Their contract would last until 1940. Apollinaire’s book of poems, Alcools with several poems referring to Laurencin, is published, as is Les Peintres cubists, in which she is a famous figure.

1914 – On the 22nd day of June this year, she married the German Baron Otto von Wätjen, whom she had met the previous year. During the period of the First World War, Laurencin left France and went to Spain with her German born husband, Baron Otto von Waëtjen. The couple subsequently lived together briefly in Düsseldorf.

1920 – This year, they divorced and she went back to Paris in 1921.

1923 - Designs the set and costumes for Les Biches for the Ballets Russes, which premiers in Monte Carlo and is later shown at the Théâtre Champs-Elysées in Paris to much acclaim. Laurencin also designs the set and costumes for the ballet Les Roses.

1925 - Laurencin decides to take responsibility for raising and educating Suzanne Moreau, the young daughter of one of Laurencin’s maids.

1932 – She teaches at the art academy Villa Malakoff in the 16th arrondissement until 1935.

1942 – She published Le Carnet des nuits, a collection of reminiscences and poems from her youth and early part of her career.

1944 – Her apartment on rue Savorgnan de Brazza is taking over by the Germans. She would not reclaim the apartment until three years before her death.

1954 – She officially adopts Suzanne Moreau as her daughter on June 2 of this year.

1956 – She passed away on the 8th day of June this year in her apartment in Paris. She is buried in the cemetery Père-Lachaise according to her wishes, dressed in white with a rose in one hand and Apollinaire’s love letters by her heart.

1983 – On the one hundredth anniversary of Laurencin's birth, the Musée Marie Laurencin opened in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. The museum now houses over 500 works and an archive.