A coincidence of history: the remarkable story of Céret
It is summer 1909. The address: Boulevard de Montparnasse, Montmartre, Paris.
The place: La Coupole café. The artist son of an American porcelain maker in
France and a Spanish sculptor sit sipping an expresso and an ´anis del mono’.
Smoke from cigarettes curls languidly in the suffocating summer heat. In the
corner two elderly ladies discuss a problem one is having with her plumbing.
Manolo, the sculptor, is keen to escape the dead city for the south of France. His
friend Frank Burty Haviland agrees.
Making a living in Paris is tough. There are just too many artists. Frank’s father,
Charles, has disinherited him because he refused to enter the family business.
For Charles, his son´s desire to become an artist is a sacrilege. (This attitude was
perhaps a touch ironic given that during the late 1800s the floral designs for the
fine Haviland porcelain were heavily influenced by artists of the burgeoning
Impressionist Movement.) But Frank has talent. As a child he yearned to be a
musician inspired by his Catalan teacher and composer, Eduardo Viňes. He
especially loved Beethoven and Chopin. But his father disapproved.
Charles´granddaughter says of her grandfather, ´Charles était aussi un homme
extrêmement autoritaire, dominateur, et qui ne supportait aucune
contradiction.`Charles, a Quaker, was clearly an authoritarian and brooked no
dissent. Frank´s grandparents had left New York and moved to France in the
1840s and set up the famous Haviland porcelain business in Limoges. Their two
sons, Charles and Theodore fell out and set up rival businesses in the town.
There is one final twist in the story of grandfather Charles; his wife committed
suicide aged just 38 because he refused to give up an affair and threatened to
disinherit his children if she filed for divorce.
In some ways it is hard to imagine the times. They were extraordinary indeed.
The Great War would have been brewing. Four years earlier Einstein, working
in Switzerland, published 4 astonishing papers in one year which were to change
thinking on space, time and matter. In that same year, 1905, Freud published his
theory of sexuality. In Paris, art was in revolution. Two years after Einstein´s
Annus Mirabilis ( Extraordinary Year) Picasso created what is judged to be the
first Cubist painting, the remarkable `Les Demoiselles´.
Les Demoisselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso
Unlike the physicists, the artists were a mobile group gathering their inspirations
far and wide as bees collect nectar. The hive was Paris. And there was a strong
Spanish element. Described as a ´colonie´, this group (of painters, sculptors,
composers and poets) included Picasso, Déodat de Séverac, Juan Gris, Enric
Casanovas and Manolo (Manuel Martinez Hugué) In fact, apart from Picasso,
they were predominantly Catalan.
In 1908 Frank, aged 21, spent time in the vibrant art scene of New York mixing
with the Stieglitz group of photographers with whom his brother was connected
in 5th Avenue. He returned to Paris in 1909. He set up shop among his Spanish
friends. Here they would pass evenings playing the guitar and piano, drinking
´anis del mono´and reading poems by Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob.
In 1906 Enric Casanovas, who would have known the Catalan Pyrenees well,
suggested that Picasso spend time working during the summer in a little village
called Gósol near Andorra. Gósol was known for its health-giving properties.
In 1909 the same suggestion was made to Frank and Manolo; Picasso had left
Paris to work in Horta de Sant Joan, south of Barcelona that same summer.
So Frank and Manolo abandoned the stifling heat of Paris and travelled to south
west France; the area we now know for the cities of Montpellier, Perpignan and
Carcassonne. On arrival they went to Bourg-Madame in the Cerdagne area of
the Pyrenees south of Carcassonne, the same route Picasso had taken on his
return from Gósol to Paris.
But their plans were disrupted by war between Morocco and Spain which
erupted over Spain´s satellites in Morocco. Manolo was worried that if he
crossed the border into Spain, he was liable to be called up. They remained in
Bourg-Madame until September.
The young Frank Burty Haviland 1910 in
Picasso’s studio
They returned to Paris in the autumn. But they were soon heading south again.
Manolo had written to Enric Casanovas in January 1910 praising the beauty of
the landscape around Banyuls close to the Spanish border. Later that month
Manolo´s wife Totote sent a postcard from a town called Céret. She had written
to Enric saying it was ´simplement merveilleux´ and urging him to come with
Frank. Frank arrived on the 10th February 1910 to work. Déodat de Séverac and
his future wife, Henriette Tardieu, were also there. (It was here that he
composed his opera, l’Héliogabal). It seems that suddenly the worker bees had
found a new source of nectar.
Céret
It was largely Frank who was to make the town world famous. Frank had
become friends with Picasso, no doubt part of what Picasso’s biographer John
Richardson describes as ‘the court of Picasso’. Encouraged by Frank, he made
his first trip to Céret to work in July 1911. He was followed in August by one of
the other leading Cubists, Georges Braque, who stayed for nearly 6 months.
Several significant Cubist works were completed there (Braque´s Le Portugais
and Picasso´s L´homme à la pipe). Picasso returned again in summer 1912. He
rented the magnificent maison Delcros. Meanwhile Deodorat de Severac and
Henriette had moved in permanently, although the composer was to die just a
few years later in 1921.
Frank bought a house there in 1913, the beautiful ‘Capucins’, originally a
Capucin monastery. It was in this small provincial town that he met his wife-tobe, Josephine Laporta, a Céretane by birth. Unsurprisingly, his father was absent
from the magnificent wedding in 1914.
View from ´Capucins´-Frank Burty Haviland
It is intriguing to ask if Céret would ever have become this hot-bed of Cubism
and a centre for the arts if the conflict between Spain and Morocco had not
erupted at just that moment in 1909? It would seem that it was just that small
change of plans which put Céret on the world art map.
Other artists drawn to Céret between 1911 and 1913/14 and the start of the Great
War included Jean Marchand, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Jo Davidson, Ramon
Pichot, Marc Lafargue, Joaquim Sunyer, Auguste Herbin, Juan Gris and Moise
Kisling.
This country town in south west France becomes what poet, writer and art critic
André Salmon described as “la Mecque du cubisme”, the Mecca of Cubism.
French writer Victor Craste documents the role of Céret in the development of
Cubism in 'Naissance du cubisme:
Céret 1910-1920'
The court of Picasso (Picasso left, Pierre Brune centre)
The town, the capital of Vallespir, lies in a striking landscape. Behind, the blue
green Pyrenees and snow-capped Mt. Canigou dominate. To the north, open
plains. Here in early spring the white blossom of cherries lies like a fine
sprinkling of icing sugar. This area of France has long been a magnet for artists.
The light is striking. Nearby nestles the famous fishing port of Collioure. Here
luminaries such as Henri Matisse and Andre Derain made their first visit a few
years earlier in 1905.
At this time Céret is a provincial place. A far cry from Bohemian Paris. And
apparently a far cry from the revolutionary ideas of the capital.
The town is known for its shoe-making (espadrilles), its striking fabrics and for
the production of oak wine casks and corks. It moves to the rhythm of traditional
festivals such as St. Ferréol and its bullfights. But like much of Roussillon, Céret
has something else. Being close to the Spanish border it is also steeped in
Spanish history. One French writer says 'Céret c'est encore la France, mais c'est
déjà un peu l'Espagne'. It is still France but already a little Spanish. It has a
distinctly Catalan feel.
One can imagine that Céret and its surroundings including Collioure provided a
breath of fresh air away the hot-house atmosphere of city life in Paris. Fresh
images to inspire. New material to apply Cubist principles. And it would have
been convenient for the Spanish artists such as Picasso, Manolo and Juan Gris
whilst not as remote as places like Gósol, high in the Pyrenees.
Portrait of Frank by Mogdiliani
During the Great War Frank and his wife left Céret. In the years that followed
much changed. And Frank and Josephine separated.
By 1940 as war swept Europe again, Céret became a refuge not just for painters
but a wide range of Parisian artists and intellectuals including Jean Cassou, Jean
Cocteau, Marc Saint-Saëns, Raoul Dufy and Albert Marquet.
It was only after the second World War that Frank returned to Céret.
It was Frank and Pierre Brune who took the first steps towards creating a
museum of Modern Art in Céret in 1948. Two years later it was inaugurated
with works donated by Picasso and Matisse. Other early works included pieces
by Juan Gris, Auguste Herbin, André Masson, Moise Kisling and Manolo. In
1953 Picasso donated his fabulous collection of bull-fighting ceramics. In 1956
after the death of Brune, Frank became the Museum’s Curator.
Although Frank, as a painter, is essentially seen as on the margins of the Cubist
movement he participated actively in its development. And he was a major
influence in putting Céret firmly on the world art map. In 2010 the Céret
Museum held a special retrospective of the work of this little known but highly
influential artist who died in 1971 at the age of 94 and who is buried in the town.
As you stand by the front entrance to the museum, looking up at the soaring
plane trees which provide welcome shade in the height of summer, you can
imagine Frank and the ‘court of Picasso’ sitting, relaxing at the café in the little
square some 100 years earlier.
Languedoc Roussillon is a treasure trove of wonderful art museums. Any visit to
the region would be incomplete without a visit to Céret and its Musée d'Art
Moderne.
Adrian Duke © 22/12/11