In 1954, art historian Agnès Humbert noted in her book Les Nabis et leur époque (1888-1900) that “there never was… a female Nabi.” Marthe Bonnard, Marthe Denis, France Ranson, Marguerite Sérusier, Clotilde Narcis, and others, the wives of artists Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul-Élie Ranson, Paul Sérusier, and Aristide Maillol, were involved in the group not as artists, but as collaborators, assistants, and essential supports.

The artistic project Women with the Nabisaims to highlight the crucial but often overlooked role of women in the Nabi movement. The exhibition seeks to reveal the tensions between work and craft, artist and model, active and passive, visible and invisible, to nuance a predominantly masculine and homogeneous vision of the movement.

The first section of the exhibition invites viewers to discover the history through the theme of the couple, which then expands to the family. It highlights the wives of the Nabis and examines the diversity of couple representations within this group, while also integrating the women’s perspectives on marital intimacy.

In this context, Maillol’s The Couple holds a special place. Visitors can closely admire this bronze statuette, symbolizing the unity and balance between man and woman. In his 1907 journal, Maillol’s patron, Kessler, describes the preparatory drawings for this work, finding this couple “particularly beautiful”: “a naked young man and a woman crouched together in profile, with his arm around the woman’s neck.”

Alongside this sculpture, drawings by Ker-Xavier Roussel and Lacombe illustrate other couples of men and women merging together, continuing the exploration of unity and balance between genders. This presentation aligns perfectly with Maillol’s artistic vision, who considered the bas-relief Desire, for which The Couple was a preparatory step, as “a drawing on stone,” a form where sculpture and drawing intertwine harmoniously.

The passage through the exhibition rooms dedicated to tapestry allows the discovery of another work by Maillol, The Enchanted Garden, created with his future wife Clotilde Narcis. This section explores the metaphor of the status of artists’ wives, as companions, models, and assistants. Examples from the Ranson, Rippl-Rónai, and Maillol couples illustrate this dynamic, showing how the division of labor manifests according to gendered logics, where women often execute what men have designed and drawn on paper.

The tapestries on display show how this art form, with a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, harmonized perfectly with the new aesthetic principles of the time, abolishing the distinction between “high art” and “applied art.” The design of tapestries offers complete freedom of composition, allowing for the formulation of symbolic meanings and requiring an abstract, synthetic, and two-dimensional interpretation. By studying the medieval art of tapestry, Maillol observes: “Tapestries can be considered monumental paintings… it is an art more appealing, more significant than painting.” He even asserts that a “Gothic tapestry provides more pleasure than a Cézanne.”

This inner inspiration led Maillol to devote himself to tapestry between 1892 and 1902. In his paintings from that time, he experiments with grouping figures, a challenge for him. Tapestry offered him a new path: “It is through tapestry that I started composing… I did not find my expression in painting, I found it in tapestry.” He developed the symbolic scenes he began with double portraits into larger, multi-figure compositions, exploring the positioning of female figures, their mutual interactions, creating compositions blending simplicity, refinement, and lightness. The “tranquil rituals” of the tapestries practically invited symbolic readings and additional interpretations.

Unlike woven tapestries, Maillol’s tapestries are embroidered, a technique he perfected with the invaluable help of Clotilde Narcis, his future wife. Like medieval artisans, Maillol attached great importance to the manufacturing process. Dissatisfied with the commercially available threads, he produced the raw materials for his tapestries himself. Clotilde and he prepared exceptionally high-quality dyes, harvesting the necessary plants themselves. The small drawing titled Young Madame Maillol, presented at the exhibition near The Enchanted Garden, testifies to this period and highlights Clotilde’s crucial role in the creation process.

« The Enchanted Garden », created between 1895 and 1896, remains a masterpiece of Maillol’s work. It depicts women in a garden, set against a medieval millefleurs background. This work shows a dreamy Maillol, and in this scene, a certain form of utopian ideal.

Rippl-Rónai’s tapestry, Woman in a Red Dress, presented in the same exhibition room, could also be considered a dreamlike representation of an ideal garden. It immediately establishes a dialogue with The Enchanted Garden, recalling the female figure of one of the characters in the latter. It perfectly reflects Rippl-Rónai’s personal interpretation of the aesthetic theme explored by Maillol. Like Clotilde, who played both the role of assistant and model for Maillol’sEnchanted Garden, Lazarine Baudrion, Rippl-Rónai’s companion, played a crucial role in the realization of his tapestry.

In the Pont-Aven exhibition, Maillol’s Enchanted Garden and Rippl-Rónai’s Woman in a Red Dress are accompanied by elements showing their creation process: the former with a preparatory cartoon, the latter with an indigo print, highlighting the subtlety of the form-seeking process of the Quattrocento profile. Although the exact identity of the figures represented remains speculative, it is clear that both artists followed very similar techniques and inspirations.

The formats of the two tapestries are similar, as are the borders that surround them. The models pose in front of a lush vegetal background, dressed in contemporary fashionable dresses and in elegant poses. One of the female figures depicted by Maillol seems identical to that in Rippl-Rónai’s painting Woman Holding a Rose (1892-1895), suggesting that Maillol may have borrowed this figure from his friend. Similarly, the woman represented by Rippl-Rónai recalls that of Maillol’s Profile of a Woman, and the affected posture of both figures is visible in other works by the two artists, akin to Japanese prints depicting geishas.

Rippl-Rónai et Maillol ont en revanche utilisé des techniques de couture différentes. Maillol préfère des points clairsemés, disposés de manière linéaire et ordonnée, ce qui donnait à ses œuvres une texture légère et une flexibilité qui permettaient de les enrouler facilement. En revanche, Rippl-Rónai utilise des points épais, longs et entrelacés, créant des tapisseries rigides et épaisses, évoquant la robustesse des tapis persans. Ces différences se manifestent également dans le choix des couleurs : Maillol opte pour des tons continus et évite les contrastes vifs, tandis que Rippl-Rónai privilégie des teintes éclatantes et contrastées.

Au sein de l’espace d’exposition, la tapisserie Printemps de Paul Ranson propose une approche plus neutre, équilibrant les styles contrastés de Maillol et Rippl-Rónai. Les tons beiges tamisés dominent et mettent en valeur la décorativité des formes et l’esthétique des postures des figures féminines, créant ainsi une harmonie visuelle entre les différentes œuvres présentées.

Apres avoir achevé Femme à la robe rouge et les autres broderies pour la salle à manger des Andrássy, Rippl-Rónai cesse de réaliser des broderies, déçu par le manque de réception favorable en Hongrie. Il propose des tapisseries pour la décoration du Parlement, mais son projet est rejeté. Cette expérience malheureuse l’amena à arrêter définitivement la réalisation de grandes tapisseries.

Maillol, en revanche, continua de concevoir des tapisseries. Vers les années 1900, Vuillard le présente aux Bibesco, une famille princière de Roumanie, qui commande à Maillol trois tapisseries.  Ces commandes marquent une période importante dans sa carrière avant son émergence en tant que sculpteur.

L’exposition Femmes chez les Nabis éclaire la position privilégiée des femmes dans les arts décoratifs de l’époque. Elle incite également à explorer les mécanismes d’invisibilisation, de subordination et de hiérarchie au sein de ces collaborations, où les noms féminins ont longtemps été occultés en tant que signataires des œuvres. Cette analyse critique permet de mieux saisir les dynamiques de genre dans le monde de l’art et de rendre hommage à celles dont les contributions ont été négligées.