Monday, July 12, 2010

The Brussels of Laure Malclès-Masereel

On Friday I took a magical mystery tour of London by Routemaster bus, conducted by typographers Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon, whose knowledge of London's public lettering is unparalleled.  Along the way we scorned the "mean serifs" of the inscription on the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, admired the fantastic Victorian storefront of James Smith & Sons (Umbrellas) Ltd in New Oxford Street, and learned that the windows spelling out OXO on the iconic Oxo Tower were a cunning way of bypassing a ban on advertising on the riverfront. This enchanting experience would have prompted me to post on the shopfronts of London and Paris in the parallel art of Eric Ravilious and Lucien Boucher, but I've already done that here. So instead I shall leap from the Oxo Tower in London to the Martini Tower in Brussels, as seen by the artist Laure Malclès-Masereel. This modernist masterpiece with its distinctly 1960s sanserif lettering was pulled down in 2001-2002, the slow process of demolition being recorded here.

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Tour Martini
Lithograph, 1973

This is one of 20 signed lithographs of Brussels by Laure Malclès-Masereel for the portfolio Bruxelles, published in 1973. The lithographs were printed on Hopyard Mill paper at the Centre Frans Masereel in Kasterlee. There were 21 hand-signed copies, and a further 21 copies on Japan paper and 60 on Hopyard Mill, which were initialled and dated in the stone. There were also 20 hors-commerce copies, for which the paper is not specified.

Laure Malclès-Masereel, La marchande d'escargots
Original drawing, charcoal on tracing paper, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, La marchande de caracoles
Lithograph, 1973

Bruxelles was supposed to be a joint project between Laure Malclès-Masereel and her husband Frans Masereel, but his death in 1972 meant that only one drawing by Frans could be used, and the rest of portfolio is by Laure alone. I think her lithographs are wonderfully evocative of the city and its street life.   They also include several further examples of public lettering on shopfronts, bars, restaurants, and chimneys.


Laure Malclès-Masereel, Marché Ste-Catherine
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Marché aux fleurs et oiseaux à la Grand-Place
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Foire aux antiquaires (Grand Sablon)
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Marché aux puces
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel was born in Avignon in 1911. Under her maiden name of Laure Malclès she illustrated works by Alain-Fournier, Mary Webb, and others with original lithographs; I have her edition of Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes, but I don't think I have photos of it available. Sometime around 1950 she met the Belgian master of the woodcut Frans Masereel (1889-1972), and after their marriage she worked under the name Laure Malclès-Masereel. She died in 1981.

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Boulevard Adolphe Max
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Place de Brouckère
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Boulevard Adolphe Max vu de l'hôtel Plaza
Lithograph, 1973

Laure Malclès-Masereel, Panorama de Bruxelles
Lithograph, 1973

I suspect Laure Malclès-Masereel must have been related to the theatre-designer and lithographer Jean-Denis Malclès (1912-2002), but I haven't so far been able to establish how.
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4 comments:

  1. Jane LibrizziJuly 12, 2010 at 3:46 PM

    It's embarassing to realize that Franz Masereel was married to someone so talented, but I didn't know about her. Sometimes her work makes me think of Raoul Dufy or Pierre Bonnard in the way the images convey pleasure in the inclusion of people in urban scenes, as opposed to artists who prefer their views static. The photographs of the Martini Tower suggest that a lot more than one building was razed in the neighborhood after 1973.

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  2. NeilJuly 12, 2010 at 5:40 PM

    So glad you like these, Jane. I agree about the inclusion of the people, and I also admire the way she fractures her cityscapes into a series of planes to give a sense of the hectic life taking place within what could have been static views.

    I've just added in the body of the text a link to a website that gives a virtual tour of London's public lettering, which I meant to do in the first place.

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  3. Philip WilkinsonJuly 13, 2010 at 10:18 AM

    I didn't know about her either. What a wonderful sense of place, and of the architectural details (window surrounds, ironwork, etc) that go with it. And not a 'mean serif' in sight.

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  4. NeilJuly 13, 2010 at 10:56 AM

    I've never been to Brussels, but I feel I know it quite well through these lithographs. But atmospheric and accomplished as they are, I don't think anyone need feel guilty for not knowing about this artist- she is fairly obscure even by the standards of this blog. She ought to have been better known, though. As Jane rightly says there is a flavour of Raoul Dufy about her work.

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