She, “the woman with the erotic brain”. They, Anne and Claire Berest. Sisters, novelsists, great-granddaughters of Gabriële Buffet Picabia. The Berest sisters offer us a jointly-written and enlightening portrait – where no history book of note mentions this figure from the world of art – of this legendary and mystical ancestor. A kind of obvious subject that entered their lives four years ago. Gabriële, although she couldn’t have known them, seems to have chosen them. This is what their reading of the biography of Marcel Duchamp, her friend and lover, seems to suggest, where her name crops up several times and she is described as “outstanding” and “extraordinary“. Like a posthumous incitement to document the romantic life of this woman who can only be defined as one of a kind. Gabriële was 27 when, in 1908, she met Francis Picabia, then in the shadow of Picasso, Pissarro and their circle. She had a strong personality, was erudite, independent and breathed much-needed new life into the work of the impressionist artist. She made him paint emotions. Her difference is intriguing, fascinating. It makes her stand out from the margins of history. Makes the men she met fall at her feet. Her intuitions were always right and she was always on the cutting edge of artistic innovation. From Paris to Étival, from Saint-Tropez to Berlin: Gabriële is revealed sometimes as a leader ready to defy convention, sometimes as a distant mother. A heavy family history, often a killer, depicted by Anne and Claire Berest in the form of a highly colourful adventure of an equally colourful character.
Adore Anne and would like to have read some of her answers to interview questions, too. Maybe next time! XO.