ABOVE
"Page Lyrique", Myriam Darrell
Adapted music score
LETTRISM & the graphic
The images around which this essay hangs are (almost entirely) works by women, leaning heavily on the visuality that unfolded through Lettrism.
Isidore Isou, the self-appointed movement leader of Lettrism, proposed that before words there are letters. This means that Lettrist poetry is (potentially) a collection of unreadable letters and incomprehensible sounds. A charming illustration of this is in a short 1955 film by Orson Welles. Available online, Around the world with Orson Welles documents Isou, Spacagna and Lemaître reciting a poem while Lemaître explains the new "letters" they have discovered, such as coughs, lip sputters, and nasal honks.
This is poetry as sound; soon follows a visual poetry, which the Lettrists call hypergraphics. Hypergraphics comes to dominate Lettrism, partly because it is more accessible than atonality. For one thing, one does not need to be lured into jazz cellars like the Tabou in order to appreciate it -- Orson Welles also shows Gabriel Pomerand reciting in a night club —hypergraphic works can be exhibited on the walls of chic galleries and published for wide distribution.
In their purest form, hypergraphic works are composed of letters from the Roman alphabet, but also from any other alphabet, in addition to invented signs, so that a hypergraphic work of art is a composition using letters signs and other artistic embellishments. Lettrism thrived/peaked during the 1970s and 80s when various galleries in Paris, exhibited elegantly poetic artworks in the hypergraphic style.
ABOVE
"Louvre", Myriam Darrell, 1971
This is not the first investigation into women and Lettrism—Isou, who reportedly wanted to be first with any new idea -- wrote an introduction to the 1989 exhibition, FEMININS LETTRISTES. Isou stated that he was a strong supporter of women and cited George Sand, Marie Curie, Berthe Morisot and Marie Laurencin; these women excelled because they exceeded the expectations of their field. He then suggested that Lettrist women could do the same—they could only succeed if they followed the principles of Lettrism. Isou’s introduction was less an endorsement of their art than an insistence on his Lettrist principles. Isou’s predictable screed is followed by a more reasoned essay in the catalogue from Catherine Goldstein.
To compile a list of women artists in Lettrism, I have searched through numerous anthologies, studies, catalogues and legends, as well as relying on my own acquaintances and what they've reported. Some names—Micheline Hachette, Françoise Canal—have come up often; some are prominent through their own role as models—Woodie Roehmer—or as exhibiting artists and critics—Frédérique Devaux—while others merit barely a mention in the index of a book, or appear once and then disappear.
The web of relationships illustrates another aspect of the presence of women in Lettrism. One of the earliest female artists in Lettrism is Myriam Durrell, wife of Jacques Spacagna and she sets the early pattern of women joining the movement via their husband. And in a second generation of Lettrist artists there is almost a family grouping where the brothers Roland Sabatier and Alain Satié bring into the fold Micheline Hachette, wife of Sabatier, and their daughter Virginie Caraven, while Satié involves his partner Woodie Roehmer.
The female artist Tasiv married Lettrist Albert Dupont, and in a reversal, the artist and critic Frédérique Devaux seems to have brought in her partner Michel Amarger. Later in life, Catherine Caron, who came into Lettrism as a young lover of Jean-Pierre Gillard, returned to accompany Sabatier to the end of his life.
A few seemingly unattached women such as Françoise Canal remained stalwarts throughout the life of the movement.
What is important to insist on is that in spite of romantic and family relations, each of these women Lettrists created her own aesthetic space and style whether family, friends, lovers or --- just enlightened artists. My criterion is to find a work of theirs that can illustrate their contribution to the movement and I hope to illustrate this in the following brief survey.
Before looking at the most prominent women in Lettrism, let me say that many have passed though with barely a trace. Monique Pourtalès is an example of someone who appears only marginally. She is included in the volume La Peinture lettriste, but only in the appendix where brief biographies are listed, (Pourtalès is the author of a book on Isou, published at Laval in Québec), and where major artists have their portrait, and other artists merit only a black and white thumbnail of an artwork (my own work appears in the same appendix.) One suspects that for Pourtalès being Canadian contributed to her limited exposure. The following work from 1999 was in the “Interparticipant” show, where she was invited by Isou.
Another evanescent figure is Aude Jessemin (1937-2022). An internet search reveals a few works, including an “Hypergraphie galante” from 1966, copied here from Artnet. A close examination of the work shows lines and fields of hypergraphic signs. An entry in the Maurice Lemaître website notes her passing and refers to her as Lemaître’s favorite female Lettrist artist, while regretting that at her death not a single one of her paintings is in a museum.
One November day, which happened to be the release of Beaujolais nouveau, I made the short trip from Paris to Chartres and met “Jim Palette” in front of the cathedral. A first time encounter, we had no trouble recognizing each other, and he led me to his quirky lodgings nearby.
Jean-Pierre Gillard and I spent the day discussing Lettrism and his career in radio, and Anne-Catherine Caron. Gillard had been “the poet” in high school in the Paris suburb of Sèvres, and inspired both Broutin and Poyet to join Lettrism. He also indicated that he had a romantic interest in the teenager Anne-Catherine Caron, bringing her into the movement in 1972. Caron had left him to go to Italy and she made a career there, teaching and translating, as well as exhibiting. We will come back to Caron later on, as she assumes a prominent role in this narrative.
FANNY GOLDSTEIN
The artist to be known as Isidore Isou in Paris was born as Isidore Goldstein in Romania. A precocious ruffian who quarrelled with his father, the teenage Isou (a name derived from his mother’s pet nickname for him) was championed by his older sister, Fanny. Sure that he would one day earn a Nobel Prize, he promised to share the proceeds with her. At that point Lettrism was still only a fantasy in the mind of Isou, but it is enchanting to project her as the first female adherent. No known works exist, but she could have been the muse for his later output. [Information from a review in The London Review of Books, July 2022, Rye Dag Holmboe discussing Andrew Holley’s Speaking East: The Strange and Enchanted Life of Isidore Isou, Reaktion, 2021.]
MICHELINE HACHETTE (1938-1993)
“Micheline Hachette is currently the first female personality in the Lettrist group, the one who has shown herself to be the most resilient and solid in an enduring avant-garde movement, demanding great density and permanent courage from those who have decided to fight to impose the innovative concepts of this movement.” [Isidore Isou, in L’Art corporel lettriste. Paris: Psi, 1977]
After this high praise from the leader of Lettrism, her death from an automobile accident in 1993 led Isou to regret that like Leonardo da Vinci, she had left behind only a limited number of works.
These two early works (1966) from the on-line museum of the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, show her panache and playfulness.
The artist to be known as Isidore Isou in Paris was born as Isidore Goldstein in Romania. A precocious ruffian who quarrelled with his father, the teenage Isou (a name derived from his mother’s pet nickname for him) was championed by his older sister, Fanny. Sure that he would one day earn a Nobel Prize, he promised to share the proceeds with her. At that point Lettrism was still only a fantasy in the mind of Isou, but it is enchanting to project her as the first female adherent. No known works exist, but she could have been the muse for his later output. [Information from a review in The London Review of Books, July 2022, Rye Dag Holmboe discussing Andrew Holley’s Speaking East: The Strange and Enchanted Life of Isidore Isou, Reaktion, 2021.]
MICHELINE HACHETTE (1938-1993)
“Micheline Hachette is currently the first female personality in the Lettrist group, the one who has shown herself to be the most resilient and solid in an enduring avant-garde movement, demanding great density and permanent courage from those who have decided to fight to impose the innovative concepts of this movement.” [Isidore Isou, in L’Art corporel lettriste. Paris: Psi, 1977]
After this high praise from the leader of Lettrism, her death from an automobile accident in 1993 led Isou to regret that like Leonardo da Vinci, she had left behind only a limited number of works.
These two early works (1966) from the on-line museum of the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, show her panache and playfulness.
Later works, among those on her website, turn more to the geometric—I like to think of them as inspired by woven fabric or patchwork quilts:
Hachette is also collected in Jean-Pau Curtay’s La Poésie lettriste (Paris: Seghers, 1974), which focusses on the oral poetry of the Lettristes. After important biographical and theoretical essays, Curtay gives examples of the work of the founders—Pomerand, Isou, Lemaître—and next generation Lettrists Sabatier and Satié, Poyet, Curtay himself, Broutin, Gillard. Hachette, beginning in 1966 is among the earliest. While these are sound poems to be recited orally, her texts can have an elegant visual impact. Unlike Isou, who might give notes to indicate “new letters” such as snores, growls and sighs (“Larmes d’une jeunes fille,” p. 195), Hachette relies of the repetition of letters and particular typographic forms to suggest the sound.
Hachette is also collected in Jean-Pau Curtay’s La Poésie lettriste (Paris: Seghers, 1974), which focusses on the oral poetry of the Lettristes. After important biographical and theoretical essays, Curtay gives examples of the work of the founders—Pomerand, Isou, Lemaître—and next generation Lettrists Sabatier and Satié, Poyet, Curtay himself, Broutin, Gillard. Hachette, beginning in 1966 is among the earliest. While these are sound poems to be recited orally, her texts can have an elegant visual impact. Unlike Isou, who might give notes to indicate “new letters” such as snores, growls and sighs (“Larmes d’une jeunes fille,” p. 195), Hachette relies of the repetition of letters and particular typographic forms to suggest the sound.
VIRGINIE CARAVEN (1970--)
While her place in Lettrism does not rise to prominence, Caraven is the daughter of Sabatier and Micheline Hachette, so she must be considered here. Her works were included in several shows before she joined Lettrism in 1988, and while rarely included in catalogues and anthologies, she produced a variety of interesting pieces, such as the following from her series Nature et Culture; this one, painted on road maps, is “Légende indienne et d’ailleurs.” (In La Peinture Lettriste, edited by Isou, Satié and Sabatier under the pseudonym Gérard Bermond, p.93):
While her place in Lettrism does not rise to prominence, Caraven is the daughter of Sabatier and Micheline Hachette, so she must be considered here. Her works were included in several shows before she joined Lettrism in 1988, and while rarely included in catalogues and anthologies, she produced a variety of interesting pieces, such as the following from her series Nature et Culture; this one, painted on road maps, is “Légende indienne et d’ailleurs.” (In La Peinture Lettriste, edited by Isou, Satié and Sabatier under the pseudonym Gérard Bermond, p.93):
Before long Virginie Caraven left Lettrism and took up a life raising horses in the countryside.
MYRIAM DARRELL (MARIE-LOUISE NADAL) (1944--)
In Lettrisme et hypergraphie, 1972, Broutin wrote that “the work of Myriam Darrell-Spacagna is puzzling and refined, and it was produced in a style that is located somewhere between graffiti and elegant hypergraphy. She may be the one best able to express the attraction of the mysteriousness of signs."
Darrrell remains invested in Lettrism and holds on to the memory of her ex-husband Jacques Spacagna. In our correspondence she has called herself an ex-Lettrist, since Lettrism has fallen apart. She spoke of wanting to get the female Lettrists together, but it is not clear who other than Françoise Canal would be able to join her. In the early years her association with Spacagna introduced her to Man Ray, Roberto Matta, André Masson and others. [Artsper website]
In our conversations through the internet Darrell said that she had been a dancer until her 40s when she hurt her back, telling me of climbing on stage in Marrakech and spontaneously joining the dance occurring there. (August 3, 2023) That high kicking spirit is evident in this painting in India ink and collage from 1971 called “Blue Symphony.”
None of the anthologies or studies of Lettrism that I consulted include works by Darrell, but the portrait of her on Wikipedia shows her in front of a collection of works of hers. She is also described as a poster-maker.
In 2014 Dan G. Vimeo put together a video montage of some fifteen of Darrell’s works, including the “Blue Symphony” shown above, and a fascinating series that plays on the design of musical scores, an example of which is the lead image at the top of this article.
The titles of works included suggest the range of images: “Le chemin de l’excès mène au palais de la sagesse”; “Symphonie bleue”; “J’ai goutte d’eau deux désirs dans ton miroir”; “Tourbillon”; “Toutougraph”; “Zeus”; “Les feuilles du Japon”; “Blue”; “La Cérémonie”; “Les Visiteurs”
The following are in the series resembling musical scores: “Bruitage”; “La Page musicale”; “Page lyrique”; “La Partition.”; “Floraison lyrique.”
FRANÇOISE CANAL (1944--)
Françoise Canal joined the Lettrists in 1968, following with her friends Dany Tayarda and others. That year was a time of heightened activity in the avant-garde and other cultural movements.
Canal demonstrated her creativity in all the realms of Lettrism, from poetry to music, sculpture to painting. Jean-Paul Curtay’s La Poésie lettriste, (Paris: Seghers, 1974) includes several of her works. Again, like Micheline Hachette, Canal exhibits a sense of the visual form of her oral poetry. It is not evident here how a reader would take into account the signs that have been carved out of the letter fields, but the effect is enchanting:
The following are in the series resembling musical scores: “Bruitage”; “La Page musicale”; “Page lyrique”; “La Partition.”; “Floraison lyrique.”
FRANÇOISE CANAL (1944--)
Françoise Canal joined the Lettrists in 1968, following with her friends Dany Tayarda and others. That year was a time of heightened activity in the avant-garde and other cultural movements.
Canal demonstrated her creativity in all the realms of Lettrism, from poetry to music, sculpture to painting. Jean-Paul Curtay’s La Poésie lettriste, (Paris: Seghers, 1974) includes several of her works. Again, like Micheline Hachette, Canal exhibits a sense of the visual form of her oral poetry. It is not evident here how a reader would take into account the signs that have been carved out of the letter fields, but the effect is enchanting:
There follows a cluster of new Lettrists in the early 1970s, including several women who appear in Curtay’s anthology, and in spite his mentioning that they are also active as visual artists, I have found no representation of their visual work: Sandra Scarnati (1937 -- ), Janie van der Driessche (1949 -- ), Florence Villers (?), Sylvie Fauconnier (1950 -- ), Jacqueline Panhelleux (?), Mona Fillières (1950 -- ). Anne-Catherine Caron (1955 -- ) does re-emerge as a visual artist later on.
Returning to Canal’s visual work, there is an example of Polythanasie in les Atamanes. Polythanasie is a sort of up-cycling or detournement, where a previous work is destroyed and reformulated into a new composition:
After joining the Lettrist movement in 1968, François Canal participated in most of the Lettrist exhiibitions and activities that followed. She was one of the seven women in the “emblematic show “7 Lettrist Women,” which took place in Paris in the 1978 in the Libairie-Galerie Fabrice Bayarre.
The on-line gallery Les Atamanes features Françoise Canal and praises her as one of the most original of the Lettrists. In addition to painting, she incorporates physical objects into her works, including utilitarian pieces like CD-roms.
Canal mixes together all the arts and means of expression, so that her poems, as we have noted, are also visual works, and they also tend toward the musical.
Atamanes finds that Canal’s work is uniquely bound to philosophical representations, following Isou’s goals for artistic expression.
Broutin declares that: “The style of Françoise Canal (1944) was initially playful and intuitive, and seemed to move in all directions at once with its multitude of signs and symbols. This later changed into specific, well-considered, and modest compositions.” [Broutin in Lettrisme et hypergraphie, 1972]
MISOGYNY AND THE LETTRISTS || Symphonie bleue, reprise
Any discussion of women in art evokes the well-told story of Artemisia Gentilleschi. She was doubtless preceded by countless anonymous Medieval paintresses, sculptresses, and architects. Men took the credit to give validity to the work. And then they slept with the women. So: Artemisia, painting for her father’s fame, then raped by her teacher.
Novels, memoirs, movies recalling the Paris of the 1950s stoke the liberated/misogynist reputation; even the thrifty Isou may have varied his onanism with occasional visits to prostitutes at Pigalle, one of the opportunities for the penniless [Holley]. Certainly the atmosphere surrounding the attractive Isou was sexually charged, and not in a charming way.
The Lettrist movement held meetings in cafés on a regular basis. Isou, as the master, would pontificate, sharing his ideas, which he also effused in books. That he saw himself as the Messiah of the movement is clear from from his writings.
In one anecdote, retold by Bertozzi, Lemaître objected that Isou had sex with his new girlfriend before Lemaître had a chance. Isou’s reply was that as leader of the Lettriste movement he had the right to have sex with anyone he wanted, a sort of droit de seigneur.
Isou’s adolescent drawing style does not help . In The Journals of the Gods [Paris: Aux Escaliers de Lausanne,1950], a graphic novel, he portrays the Creation of the World through a female acrobat naked on a swing and urinating on the heads of spectators to the amusement of God (p. 1), while on the next page, the Formation of Men and Women sets up a homoerotic scene with ejaculating phalluses. Lemaître states that he actually did many of the drawings in this book, with Isou doing the text. This was because of production pressures; Lemaître was a happy collaborator at this point. [Isidore Isou, Hypergraphic Novels, 1950-1984, p. 56]
Isou apparently earned income from writing pornographic books over a period of time, and also published under his name works like Isou and the Mechanics of Women, sort of a hyper graphic novel featuring pictures of different sexual positions, and he carried this trait on into Introduction to High Voluptuousness.
Isou’s adolescent drawing style does not help . In The Journals of the Gods [Paris: Aux Escaliers de Lausanne,1950], a graphic novel, he portrays the Creation of the World through a female acrobat naked on a swing and urinating on the heads of spectators to the amusement of God (p. 1), while on the next page, the Formation of Men and Women sets up a homoerotic scene with ejaculating phalluses. Lemaître states that he actually did many of the drawings in this book, with Isou doing the text. This was because of production pressures; Lemaître was a happy collaborator at this point. [Isidore Isou, Hypergraphic Novels, 1950-1984, p. 56]
Isou apparently earned income from writing pornographic books over a period of time, and also published under his name works like Isou and the Mechanics of Women, sort of a hyper graphic novel featuring pictures of different sexual positions, and he carried this trait on into Introduction to High Voluptuousness.
CATHERINE GOLDSTEIN || in conclusion
An accomplished mathematician, Goldstein observed much of the Lettrist activity. I met her first in 2000 at the exhibition Letters to Lettrism at Georgia Southern University. Her American husband had family nearby and they came with their young son to look at the show. Later I only saw her at the Père Lachaise Crematorium, at the memorial for Alain Satié, then at his brother Roland Sabatier in 2013.
Catherine Goldstein wrote an essay to open the slim volume of FEMININS LETTRISTES where she emphasized that the six artists were individuals, not to be grouped as a mere "bunch of women artists". The poorly printed brochure with images in black and white, forgetting Tasiv, is a shameful response to the presence of women in Lettrism.
Catherine Goldstein is an accomplished mathematician in a male-dominated profession. She knows what it means to be identified as a woman in a man’s world. “To create” she writes, “is also to show people to the actual actions of explanation. It is the rare and happy moment that we are invited to. Even more it could miss us. Separated from the others each canvas becomes a work; together, while each maintains its individuality, they establish a second level of collective—a feminine challenge.”
An accomplished mathematician, Goldstein observed much of the Lettrist activity. I met her first in 2000 at the exhibition Letters to Lettrism at Georgia Southern University. Her American husband had family nearby and they came with their young son to look at the show. Later I only saw her at the Père Lachaise Crematorium, at the memorial for Alain Satié, then at his brother Roland Sabatier in 2013.
Catherine Goldstein wrote an essay to open the slim volume of FEMININS LETTRISTES where she emphasized that the six artists were individuals, not to be grouped as a mere "bunch of women artists". The poorly printed brochure with images in black and white, forgetting Tasiv, is a shameful response to the presence of women in Lettrism.
Catherine Goldstein is an accomplished mathematician in a male-dominated profession. She knows what it means to be identified as a woman in a man’s world. “To create” she writes, “is also to show people to the actual actions of explanation. It is the rare and happy moment that we are invited to. Even more it could miss us. Separated from the others each canvas becomes a work; together, while each maintains its individuality, they establish a second level of collective—a feminine challenge.”
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