# otd

Early 20th-century self-portraits by Marie Laurencin, who died in 1956.

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2022-06-08

Artist Jeanne Mammen died in Berlin in 1976; here two portraits of Valeska Gert, and two self-portraits. https://t.co/GzckPTfPlA

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2022-04-22

French artist Odilon Redon was born in 1840. Here is the character Des Esseintes contemplating his Redon collection in Huysmans's À rebours (1884, here tr. Margaret Mauldon), along with Redon's 1888 frontispiece depicting Des Esseintes (*c'est méta!*)

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2022-04-20

The opera "Maria Malibran" by Robert Russell Bennett premiered in NYC in 1935. Its subject was a hugely successful Spanish opera singer who established the template of the tragic diva, who had died 100 years earlier at just 28.

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2022-04-08

Pianist and saloniste Misia Sert was born 150 years ago today in Russia; here she models an outsized brioche on her head in portraits by Bonnard, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Vallotton.

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2022-03-30

French artist Paul-César Helleu (who died in 1927) really cornered the Belle Epoque's rich-ladies-in-hats market. He was also responsible for the ceiling of NYC's Grand Central Station, while friend Marcel Proust captured him in fiction as "Elstir".

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2022-03-23

Illustrations by Stephen Tennant for his long-planned novel "Lascar", which remained unfinished on his death, in 1987. https://t.co/kfvmEOqHn2

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2022-02-28

Artist Elisàr von Kupffer was born 150 years ago today. The beyond-camp works he created for his homoerotic chivalric order/two-man religion – Clarism – suggest a clothes-optional Roscicrucian jamboree. https://t.co/o257t5c6Xe

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2022-02-20

Artist Dorothea Tanning died 10 years ago today, at the age of 101. Here: a selection of Tanning's costume designs for ballets by George Balanchine ("Night Shadow") and John Cranko ("The Witch").

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2022-01-31

Jean Cocteau’s film "Le sang d’un poète" premiered 90 years ago today; it featured "Barbette" – who was actually Vander Clyde, a Texas-born aerialist who wowed between-the-wars Paris in drag. https://t.co/7c9TLSLeRV

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2022-01-20

Poet Anna de Noailles became the first woman to be named a Commander of the Legion of Honour, in 1931. (image: Ignacio Zuloaga)

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2022-01-11

Mystic British artist Georgiana Houghton produces her first abstract work, The Holy Trinity, in 1961. No, wait - 1861. 18-goddam-61!

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2021-11-29

Images from the "Decad of Intelligence" series by Ithell Colquhoun, born in 1906. https://t.co/u7FvStiSha

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2021-10-09

Works by Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern (born 1892), who achieved prominence in post-war Germany as an Outsider artist with feverish depictions of demonic, big-butted forms, like something out of a Lil Wayne cheese dream. https://t.co/HnpzgWxc3G

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2021-09-11

Lee Godie Month began in Chicago 30 years ago today to honour the homeless Outsider artist, who created these treated self-portraits. She died three years later.

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2021-09-06

British artist Christopher Wood, who died in 1930 aged just 29, painted these portraits of unusually close siblings Jean and Jeanne Bourgoint, who shared a bedroom and an opium habit – and inspired Jean Cocteau to write "Les Enfants terribles".

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2021-08-21

French writer Roger Peyrefitte was born 1907. Please enjoy these covers of his novel "Les amitiés particulières" featuring pseudo-School of Paris portraiture and multiple offences against haircare.
https://t.co/r9QAaK1JFW

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2021-08-17

80 years ago today: the Hitler Youth destroyed the Jesus theme park established by eccentric prophet gustaf nagel (sic); he later wrote to Goebbels to tell him his vision of victory was a lie, only to end up in (and survive) Dachau. https://t.co/HnpzgWfAF6

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2021-08-05

Works by undiscovered artist "Bruno Hat" went on display in 1929. They turned out to be a hoax devised by Brian Howard, Bryan Guinness & friends to expose the vacuity of Modernist art, which fell flat by being neither great nor truly terrible.

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2021-07-23