20 Facts About Marthe Donas

Marthe Donas was a Belgian abstract and cubist painter and is recognized as one of the leading figures of Modernism.

Marthe Donas settled in Montparnasse at the end of 1916 and rented a studio in a large complex at 9 Rue Campagne Premiere.

Marthe Donas continued her education at the Academies de la Grande Chaumiere and Ranson.

Marthe Donas soon became Lhote's pupil and started to adapt a cubist style in her own paintings.

Marthe Donas then worked fully in a cubist manner, further developing her remarkable sense of colour under Archipenko's influence.

Marthe Donas's most recurring motive was the female figure and still lives.

Marthe Donas joined the artist group Section d'Or which was revived after the war under the leading of Archipenko.

Marthe Donas exhibited her work together with among other Gleizes, Ferat, Villon, Natalia Goncharova, Leger, Braque, Irene Lagut, Archipenko and R Duchamp in the Section d'Or-exhibitions in Paris in Galerie La Boetie and successively at different locations in the Netherlands organized by Theo van Doesburg with whom she had become close friends.

Marthe Donas visited him and his wife Lena Milis in Leiden during late spring 1920 to oversee the transportation of art works and to attend the opening in Rotterdam of the Section d'Or-exhibition.

Marthe Donas returned to her studio in Paris in autumn 1920.

At one of these exhibitions, Marthe Donas work was certainly bought by American artist Katherine Dreier.

The Societe Anonyme-collection, including Marthe Donas' work, has later been donated by Dreier to the Yale University and are still kept at the Yale University Gallery in New Haven.

Marthe Donas's paintings started developing away from the geometric abstraction towards a more figurative style.

Marthe Donas's work was admired by many of the Belgian artists though just a few knew about her cubist work at the beginning of the 1920s and she was rather seen as an up-and coming artist in Brussels.

Marthe Donas's parents died shortly after another in 1927 and 1929 and financial straits further made life difficult forcing her and her husband to seek refuge once more in Ittre.

At the age of forty-five, Marthe Donas got pregnant and gave birth to her daughter Francine in January 1931.

Marthe Donas was now fully occupied with the household of Chateau Bauthier and the upbringing of her daughter, which proved not to be easy at her age.

Marthe Donas was forced to sell the majority of her work to Maurits and Suzanne Bilcke.

Marthe Donas was happy that towards the end of her life, she was finally recognized as one of the great pioneers of the avant-garde.

Marthe Donas died on 31 January 1967 in the company of her husband and her daughter in a nursing home in Audreignies, Belgium.