The Red Fan

Laurencin was at the center of Picasso’s Cubist avant-garde in Paris in the 1900s, but by the 1910s, she developed her own distinctive style. Using light, pastel colors and delicate, frozen gestures, she depicted an all-female world. Men almost never appear in her work. Instead, she invites viewers into intimate moments, whispers, embraces, and scenes of longing. These might have been known to her lesbian friends as moments of queer intimacy, but they were equally appealing to heterosexual male art collectors. Laurencin’s aesthetic has been labeled “feminine” due to her use of soft forms and colors, in contrast to the angular shapes and neutral tones of the then-popular Cubist style.