Ethel Mars "the Pianist" Watercolor Gouache 43x35

Ethel MARS (1876-1956)
Gouache watercolor 43x35 cm "The pianist" Around 1920
Signed lower right
Born in Springfield in the United States, Ethel Mars studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cincinnati from 1892, where she met the artist Maud Squire who was to remain her lifelong companion. She moved to Paris around 1906, where she became friends with Gertrude Stein.
Ethel Mars regularly participated in the Salon d'Automne in Paris, while continuing to exhibit in the United States, mainly presenting drawings, watercolors and woodcuts.
Her work was very successful, both in France where Paul Poiret and Jacques Doucet were enthusiastic about her work, and in the United States where she received the Prize for "Best Painting by a Woman" in 1910.
The First World War forced her to return to the United States, but she returned to France in 1921 where she settled in Vence in the South.
The interior scene with a pianist is typical of her work from the 1920s, by the quality of the drawing, the finesse of the observation and her sense of staging, tinged with humor.
Bibliography: Benezit, Wikipedia, Schurr ...
Modern wooden frame