Inner Apparition - Marie Harnist

Of Alsatian origin, Marie Harnist lost her mother at a young age and was raised by her father and grandmother. Her father, Simon Harnist, who was a painter, introduced her to painting and drawing during her adolescence. Introduced to Parisian circles, she met the Dunkirk painter Louis Evrard, whom she married in 1937. The couple, who never had children, lived in the 15th arrondissement and devoted their lives to painting, art, poetry and music. Her husband dedicated the poem Le village sous la mer to her, which describes the abandonment of the village covered by the North Sea when the dikes broke during the 1939-1945 war. In 1938, Marie Harnist exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants. A letter from the President of the Société Industrielle described her as persevering and remarkable, and her compositions as having a very beautiful harmony between form and colour. The City of Paris, the Académie du Vernet, the museums of Sceaux and Meudon and private collectors bought her works including Woman behind a bouquet, Château de Conflans and Meudon. A member of the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon du Dessin et de l'Aquarelle, Marie Harnist exhibited her paintings there including La Forêt. In 1984, at the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse, her exhibition brought together 50 compositions including La Forêt noire vue de Colmar, Vignoble de Turckheim, les Trois Epis, Nuages en charroi sur le Rhin légende, le Haut-Koenigsbourg and Katzenthal. Her works are described as filled with a pastel tenderness that evokes the nostalgia for forgotten landscapes and bouquets of a real tone. Key subjects in her work, they are sometimes accompanied by birds that she tamed. Nicknamed Nina by her close friends, Marie Harnist was interested in the landscapes of her region but also those around or in Paris (Montmartre, Notre-Dame, Meudon) as well as some of the North of France where she went accompanied by her husband to Gravelines, broadly brushing her landscapes to more easily bring out the dominant impression (Journal des Arts, 1946). Catholic, her works at the end of her life are populated with everyday angels that reflect her faith. Our painting is part of this period of creation: Appearing or painted on a panel in the center of a living room in pastel tones that seems familiar, an angel remains between the table and the upright piano of a Parisian apartment. The artist wrote on May 22, 1987 to Françoise Blanckaert, her niece, that "work is energetic and salutary" according to John Paul II. In 1989, her husband died and bequeathed her works to her. After a few years in Paris, Marie Harnist returned to Alsace and died in Colmar on December 12, 2000.