#art, Seraphine Louis – Women Artists Series

Seraphine was born in 1864 in Arsy, Oise, France. Her family was poor and she started life as a shepherdess, though little is known of her young years only that she was a devout Catholic who attended Mass daily. In 1881 she began to work as a domestic at the convent of the Sisters of Providence in Clermont, Oise. Although she was not a nun, her life was very similar to the sisters. She was practically cloistered in the convent for twenty years. Then in 1901, she gained employment as a housekeeper for middle-class families in the town of Senlis.

It is interesting to note that years later Seraphine told a doctor at the hospice that at the convent she had seen terrible things. She had witnessed horrific and violent fights, a murder and the pregnancy of one of the nuns. She described hearing voices that spoke of conspiracies against her and thought of herself a secret police agent. Her medical and psychiatric records allowed doctor M.A. Ortas-Peretti to create her doctoral thesis titled Seraphine an Alianated Painter.

When Seraphine was 42 years old, and while praying at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Senlis, she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary say to her «You must start to paint.» As she considered this a divine revelation and a command, she began to paint. She would spend entire nights painting on the floor while sipping wine. She never showed her work to anyone. She had no friends. While she worked on her paintings she sang religious hymns.

Then in 1912 something extraordinary occurred that changed her life. SHe met Wilhelm Uhde. This art critic and galerist had promoted Picasso and Braque; discovered Henir Rousseau and Marie Laurencin, and was fascinated with Art Naiif. He had moved to Senlis to write and being that he needed a housekeeper he hired Seraphine.

One day while shopping Uhde saw a painting that moved him. He was told that it had been painted by a domestic servant, Seraphine. He bought the painting and made Seraphine sign it. When he visited her and saw so many magnificent paintings, he wrote in his memoirs, that an extraordinary passion, and a most sacred, medieval fervor had taken shape in Seraphine’s still life paintings.

She began to create large paintings under Uhde’s patronage and she became known as an artist. In 1929 an exhibition titled «Painters of the Sacred Heart» was organised by Uhde. Seraphine gained much recognition and much money, something she really did not know how to manage. However, it all came tumbling down with the Great Depression of 1930 which ended the patronage due to the loss of their finances.

By 1932, Seraphine’s mental health had seriously deteriorated and she was admitted at Clermont’s lunatic asylum for chronic psychosis. Not even her artwork offered her any comfort. It is possible that Louis died in 1934 as Uhde reported, or that she lived until 1942 interned in a hospital annex at Villers-sous-Erquery. Being as that she was alone and friendless, she was placed in a common grave.

I find her life and her work extremely interesting and I regret never knowing about this extraordinary painter. I hope you are interested enough to continue the search, not only about the life and work of Seraphine Louis but of the many other women painters forgotten (intentionally?) by art history.

Here are some of her paintings…

CHEERS