The team of the association AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions) is pleased to invite you to visit the Villa Vassilieff. Since its creation in 2014, our association has focused on showcasing women artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. We want you to discover our commitment in the heart of a building rich in this cultural history.
At the turn of the 1910s, Russian artist Marie Vassilieff set up her studio in the Montparnasse district and opened an academy. This place quickly became an emblematic place of Parisian cultural life. At the end of the First World War, the academy became a canteen for artists and intellectuals. You will come to visit a place where Braque, Picasso and Modigliani, among others, took part in literary evenings as well as mythical festivals. Our team will tell the little ones and the big ones how the history of this emblematic place intersects with the missions of our association. Marie Vassilieff defined herself as a «painter, sculptor and decorator», close to the avant-garde artistic movements, she produced paintings of Cézanne inspiration, then cubist, before reconnecting with the loubok, a form of Russian popular imagery. She has created dolls, masks, costumes and theatre sets, as well as furniture.
We moved to Villa Vassilieff in 2021. Wishing to be part of this matrimonial heritage, we have created an international research laboratory open to the greatest number. Renovated by the designer matali crasset, Villa Vassilieff is now home to mediation, screening, listening and documentation rooms. Re-investing this place steeped in the presence of Marie Vassilieff is a strong symbol for the association AWARE, whose mission is to give visibility to women artists.
We will make our screening room available to share with you episodes of our animated series entitled Small Stories of Great Artists. The objective of each episode is to discover in a few minutes the life and work of a woman artist. Designed by screenwriter Sophie Caron, each story conveys the originality and importance of these historical characters within different artistic currents. In a landscape where publications for children on art and youth animation give pride of place to male artists, this project aims to offer identification figures to the youngest, beyond all gender stereotypes. In addition to these cartoons, we will broadcast the interviews we conducted with the artists who won our 2022 Nouveau Regard Award. This award, created this year, aims to reward women artists in mid-career. Come and discover alongside us the testimonies of the most brilliant designers of our time!
You can also come and discover our podcasts in our listening room. Our series The great ladies of art gives voice to women artists of the 20th century. In these short episodes, you can hear them talk about their work, their life and the world around them.
We will finally have the pleasure to show you our documentation center, also called Espace Delphine Lévy, entirely dedicated to women artists and feminist art. We make available to academics and students a collection of monographs, exhibition catalogues, theoretical works, journals and theses, in order to support research and contribute to the rewriting of an inclusive and parity art history. We dedicated this space to Delphine Lévy (1969-2020), who founded and directed the public establishment Paris Musées, which includes the fourteen museums of the Vile de Paris. It has carried out an active policy of renovation of museums and has worked for the access of the greatest number to the collections, in particular by their gratuitousness and digitization.
All members of our team are looking forward to meeting you and sharing their passion for art history.
We look forward to seeing you soon in our premises!