Description: Life and Work of Avant Garde Woman Artist Marthe Donas
archipenko (4) van doesburg (2) marthe donas (1) tour donas (1) section d'or (1) der sturm (1) herwarth and nel walden (1) katherine dreier (1) la société anonyme (1) sturm frauen (1)
The Belgian artist Marthe Donas, who is gradually being rediscovered internationally, shot to fame in the years around 1920. Her paintings and collages – enigmatically signed ‘Tour Donas’ – hung at the time alongside the leading names of the avant-garde in London, Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Rome and in exhibitions that toured the United States. It was via Paris rather than Belgium, however, that she came to be part of an international artistic network that sprang back into life after the
‘Regardless of what others might think’ a determined young lady
Born in Antwerp in 1885, Marthe Donas grew up in the cosseted world of the bourgeoisie. Her father considered the world of art with its Bohemian atmosphere and nude models to be wholly unsuitable for a young woman of her class. Nevertheless she refused to give up, continued to take private lessons and finally re-enrolled at the academy in Antwerp after a spectacular and lifethreatening accident in 1912.