Tag: Misia Sert

QUERIDO ANTONIO

I often wonder if all the talented Spaniards who emigrated during the. Civil War years would have bloomed had they stayed in the country. Witness Dali, Buñuel or Balenciaga. Leaving Spain was their. Passport to universality, a prerequisite to their triumph. Their departure seemed to generate a tension in their work, as if the country they left. Forced its presence upon them in their exile, sustaining the emotional and aesthetic. Wellspring of their creations.

Not all of them have reached us in posterity with the same brilliancy. Among those figures, there is a curious one, often. Forgotten, a man in the right place, perhaps at the wrong time. Antonio Canovas del Castillo carried an illustrious name. His eponymous great uncle was a famous 19th century politician and Antonio, whose father and a younger brother were victims of the civil war, decided to move to Paris in 1938. There he became the protégé of. Misia Sert, the wife of José María Sert and of 

Ana de Pombo, the Spanish director of the. House of Paquin. With their help he began designing accessories, mostly hats and jewellery, for. Coco Chanel. Soon, Ana de Pombo asked him to become her assistant at Paquin’s, staying at the job till. Elizabeth Arden, trying to establish her haute couture line, called him to New York. “ You may find him a handful, from the point of view of. Management, but he has been conspicuously successful”…was the advice of a close friend to Miss Arden.

His sojourn in America consecrated him. In 1948, he became the recipient of the prestigious Nieman-Marcus award, a year after. Christian Dior received it for his “New Look” collection. But Miss Arden was becoming vocal about the shenanigans of Antonio: “That little brat. Castillo, is a constant thorn in my side. He can behave well for just so long and then the meanness comes out”.

He did not have to feel concerned about Elizabeth’s opinions. In 1950. Marie-Blanche de Polignac, daughter of Jeanne Lanvin, made him an offer to revitalize the haute couture line of Lanvin. These were his golden years. He succeeded in joining his name to the name of the house. That since was known as Lanvin Castillo. Upon the death of Marie-Blanche in 1958 and the advent of her successor Yves Lanvin, things somehow began to deteriorate. He hired Oscar de la Renta as his assistant, three years before his. Departure from Lanvin in 1963. De la Renta always  professed that he learnt his trade from Castillo .

But Antonio wasn’t done yet. His friend and admirer. Gloria Guiness, bankrolled him and thus he opened his own house at 95, rue du. Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He was accomplished, talented, running occasionally against trends, either late or. Early to many of them, be it broad shoulders or polka dots. And yet a third and last time, he failed. How difficult was he really? His lack of entrepreneurial spirit, his refusal to embrace the world of prêt-à-porter, accessories and boutiques sank the career of a creative professional, the bohemian gentleman who raised to the top but could not stay there.

UNDER THE VOLCANO

A name sometimes marks a life. The name Victor Hugo carries so much. Weight that his descendants have no alternative but to live under the crushing importance of their ancestor, either accepting. That nothing they will achieve or think will compare, or. Trying rebelliously to emulate his achievements.

Jean Hugo, a great grandson of the patriarch would seem. To have chosen an unusual path. Rather than struggling his way through life. Shackled by the heavy inheritance, or using it socially to his. Advantage, he chose to ignore it. He was remarkable in shrugging off. Promotion of his creative outlets. His talents, his exceptional list of friends and the circles in which he mixed, would have. Been sufficient to give him some. Additionally Olympian stature. Picasso kept telling him “you do nothing for your fame!”.

One of his many friends. Gustave Thibon, summarizes distinctively his soul: “He was a strange being, admirable, a mystic, a lover, a. Great artist who no doubt sinned by his excess of modesty”. He had the artist’s temperament in his blood. As did his great grandfather, he sketched and. Drew relentlessly from an early age.

His life was sliced in two equal parts, like the plates of a. Diptych, each of them defined by a woman. In the first, against the backdrop of the tumultuous Paris of the twenties, he met his first wife. Valentine Gross, at the apartment of Madame Alfred Edwards, later better known by the name of her third husband, Misia Sert. He married her, having Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau as witnesses to the wedding. During this period, his work centered on the theatre, lending his talents to many Cocteau plays and collaborating with Satie, Poulenc and even Carl Theodor Dreyer in his film, “The Passion of Joan of Arc”. Yet, Jean was moving gradually away from the temptations of Parisian life. A mystic streak was stirring in his blood.

In 1931 his growing discomfort. Also with urban pleasures and the failure of his ten-year marriage Furthermore. Precipitated his move to the country. At Lunel, near Montpellier, in the property inherited from his grandmother, he began experimenting with oils and endowing his choice of colors with a powerful luminosity. His new wife, Lauretta Hope-Nicolson, bore him seven children. Both devout Catholics, they lived in an old-fashioned style. In addition  entertaining lavishly and encouraging friends to stay for long periods.

Jean Hugo’s art, much like a large part of his existence, had to do with searching . Not only that for his own voice while staying away from the noise and influence of established currents. The exploration of his inner life emerged in his paintings and watercolors with a touch of innocence, almost primitive. Yet its subtle delicacy and crispness raises his work to a standard of prominence he never sought to cultivate.