Marcelle Cahn, en quête d'espace

This monograph devoted to Marcelle Cahn reveals the journey of a "discreet woman" in the agitation of the avant-garde.

Marcelle Cahn is a painter and sculptor from Strasbourg, born at the junction of two centuries and two cultures, French and German, Jewish by her father, Catholic converted by her mother, carried by music and theater before choosing painting as her field of expression.

Expressionism, cubism, purism, dada, surrealism, concrete art, lyrical and geometric abstraction, Marcelle Cahn has crossed the most important artistic currents of the 20th century without belonging to any school.

A student of Lovis Corinth and Fernand Léger, she regularly participated in exhibitions of the group Cercle et Carré, then Abstraction et Création and Art Concret, as well as the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles.

Esteemed by her peers, recognized by the critics, exhibited from 1925, she remains in the shadow of the great names of modern art.

The catalog aims to bring together and analyze for the first time the most emblematic works of Marcelle Cahn, covering all the periods and media of creation and restoring the different artistic contexts in which the artist evolved, from German expressionism of the early twentieth century to the main currents of geometric and lyrical abstraction.

The aim is to discover a work that is both rigorous and demanding, poetic and free, but also a singular personality, cultured, generous, discreet and full of fantasy.

English texts at the end of the catalogue.

Exhibition Catalogue Marcelle Cahn, presented at the Musée d'art moderne de Saint-Etienne (15 October 2022 - 5 March 2023) and previously at the Musée d'art moderne de Strasbourg.