Villa Seurat: street of artists
I would never have set foot in Villa Seurat had it not been for Betty Ryan.
Photo: Popaganda.gr
Yes, I'm paraphrasing the opening sentence of Henry Miller's book, The Colossus of Maroussi : “I would never have gone to Greece had it not been for a girl named Betty Ryan who lived in the same house with me in Paris.”
But it's true. I – or, more precisely, my daughter, Irene – would never have looked for Villa Seurat, a short dead-end street in the 14th arrondissement, had it not been for Betty Ryan. Betty Ryan was a friend of my wife's family. When her parents met her, in Maine in the late 1940s, she was married to Harry Gordon and so was known to them as Elizabeth Gordon. That's how I was introduced to her when I met her in Athens in 1972, on my first trip to Greece. She seemed old then, slight with gray hair and thick glasses, but I was only 22. She was 58, I now know. At the time, she was living in Kifissia, an elegant, tranquil suburb of Athens. Thanks to Marie-Henriette, my wife-to-be, we stayed with her in the comfortable house she was renting, surrounded by pine trees.
She smoked cigarettes, liked playing chess, ate sparingly, and spoke slowly with a whispery voice, with every word well chosen, not at all affected, completely without pretention, the language of an artist. Indeed, she was an artist, with a passion especially for painting watercolors, but she was an artist of languages, too. Not only was her English wonderful, so was her French (which she spoke with my in-laws). She had learned modern Greek, too, and earlier had studied Russian at Radcliffe and Harvard after beginning with private lessons with Vera Nabokov, eventually earning an MA in Slavic languages.
She never stayed long in any one place. Indeed, I never figured out the chronology of where she had lived when. She spoke of Greece, of Paris, of wartime US, of Maine, of Cape Cod, then back to Greece, where eventually, after Chania (on Crete), Kymi (on Euboia), and Kifissia, she would settle for some 30 years on the island of Andros, in the village of Apatouria. In her old age she returned to the US, this time choosing Woodstock, Vermont, where she died in 2003, at the age of 89.
Here is a short obituary, in the Greek newspaper, Ekathimerini, English-language version: https://www.ekathimerini.com/culture/13285/a-fond-farewell-to-two-staunch-philhellenes/ And a nice tribute, by Amalia Melis, written in 2014: http://www.kysoflash.com/Issue1/MelisRyan.aspx.
And another article from 2014, with even more information, by Evi Malliarou, in Greek: Η Αμερικανίδα ζωγράφος Betty Ryan που ερωτεύτηκε την Άνδρο - POPAGANDA
Back to Paris. In 1933 or so, Elizabeth (as I shall call her), who had grown up in New York in a well-to-do family, came to Paris to study art. In 1935 she rented an apartment with a high ceiling, just right for an artist's studio, in Villa Seurat, no. 18.
Henry Miller had already rented the apartment just above, his rent paid by Anaïs Nin, the diarist. Chaim Soutine, the painter, lived in the building too, for a while. From the outside, the building is absolutely plain. You wouldn't look twice at it if you didn't know about its illustrious inhabitants. Elizabeth and Henry were friends. So were writers Alfred Perlès and Lawrence Durrell and the German painter Hans Reichel, who had settled in Paris not too far away (7, impasse du Rouet, near the Alésia metro stop). Thanks to some essays, recollections of her days in Paris that she wrote at the end of her life, collected in a little book by a friend of hers, Sonny Saul, a bookstore owner in Woodstock, we can get some details of those years. (Saul, S., ed. 2013. Betty Ryan Recalls & Reflects. Woodstock, VT: Pleasant Street Books)
In Parisian parlance, a “villa” can mean a short dead-end street, often private, lined with houses built as a single project. Villa Seurat, named for the artist Georges Seurat (1859-1891), was developed in 1924-1928 by the French architect, André Lurçat (1894-1970), as a street of studio-residences for artists. The area, near the Montsouris Park, lay on the edge of the city, still relatively undeveloped, offering the possibility of places that artists could afford. The first of eight houses that he built was constructed for his brother Jean, a painter (1892-1966). This house-studio, at no. 4, was eventually donated by Jean's widow to the Académie des beaux-arts, and preserves the interior as the artist left it, with his furniture and his collections. Currently under restoration, the house will eventually be open to the public. For some information (in French) with pictures, see: Maison-atelier de Jean Lurçat - Institut de France
Not all the houses in Villa Seurat were built by Lurçat, however. At no. 7 bis, Chana Orloff had architect Auguste Perret design and build a studio-residence for her. Chana Orloff (1888-1968) was born in today's Ukraine, emigrated with her family to Palestine, then came to Paris in 1910 to pursue her training in dress making and fashion design.
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She signed up for a course in sculpture, though, and quickly identified this as her true vocation. This passion would serve her well for a successful career over the next half century. After escape to Switzerland during World War II – she was Jewish – she returned to Paris, eventually adding regular visits to Israel.
A copy of one of Orloff's sculptures now stands in a small square nearby, at the corner of the rues Sarrette, Tombe-Issoire, and Alésia.
Just beyond Villa Seurat is rue Gauguet, also a short dead-end street. Access is via the aptly named rue des Artistes. At the end of this simple, unprepossessing street is no. 7, where another artist, Nicolas de Staël, set up his studio in 1947. De Staël (1914-1955) was born in Russia, but his parents died when he was young. Raised by family friends in Belgium, he eventually settled in France. His life was extremely intense, even by the stereotypical standards of artists. Passionate relationships, restless travels, and painting, painting, all the time painting.
A visit to a major exhibit of his work this past September-January at the Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, left me drained. When de Staël hit his stride, with abstract paintings on which he laid the paint so thickly they seem three-dimensional, in room after room the colors and forms pulsate on his canvases.
Such an intense life could not be sustained: de Staël would kill himself at age 40.
The name “de Staël” is still on the list of apartments of no. 7, rue Gauguet, but his studio, whatever it has become, is not open for visitors.
Parc Montsouris. January 3, 2024
Very close by rue Gauguet and Villa Seurat is the Parc Montsouris, the largest park in this part of Paris. I wonder, did our artists take refuge in this park, strolling through, sitting by the lake, admiring the trees and the stretches of lawn? Did they take the park for granted, or did they feel amazement and gratitude that this and other public parks were created in the 19th century? I don't know about them, but now I'm curious myself. To be pursued . . .
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