Germaine Madeleine Chapuis

Like so many women artists, Germaine Madeleine Chapuis (1889-???) has left few biographical traces. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists describes her as a painter of flowers who had been born in Paris and who had exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in Paris around 1920.  She is listed in the Dictionnaires des peintres à Montmartre. 

Several colorful and accomplished paintings featuring flowers bear Chapuis' signature and can be found for sale on various websites. None provide information on her life or work.

One of her paintings is included in the collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques, which she donated in 1957.

A signed postcard for sale on an Italian website features the watercolor of an elegant woman. The following words are handwritten on the side of the card:

Ma parisienne vous apporte tous les souhaits que je forme pour vous ainsi que mes plus tendres baisers.

Reid Hall's pastel by Germaine Chapuis depicts a view of Paris and the Seine but has no title, no date, and no identifying information beyond the signature. 

Some clues about who Chapuis might have been can be gleaned from two documents identifying Germaine together with a male artist by the name of Pierre Marie Alfred Chapuis. They are both listed as participating in a 1924 sale at the Galerie Georges Petit (Dacier). In a catalog of the Société des artistes indépendants, they are identified as living at the same address: 189 rue Ordener in Montmartre (38). Their connection remains a mystery: are they brother and sister or husband and wife?

Known for figure, landscape and genre painting, Pierre Chapuis was born in 1863 in Paris and died on September 23, 1942. He produced pastels, oil paintings, and crayon drawings and participated in all the major Paris salons, notably the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1906, the Salon d'Automne in 1907, and the Salon des Artistes Indépendants.

Pierre Chapuis was also famous in his day for stage sets.

Two portraits of Germaine Chapuis were executed by Pierre. Though neither portrait is dated, one depicts her as a young girl wearing a hat and the other shows her as a young woman, probably done a few years after the first.

Sources

• "Chapuis, Germaine Madeleine." Benezit Dictionary of Artists (online). Oxford University Press.
• Dacier, Émile. La Revue de l'art ancien et moderne (1876-1952), June 1, 1924. Gallica.
• Salon des indépendants. Catalogue de la 54e exposition, Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, Avenue de Tokyo, 5 mars au 11 avril 1943. Gallica.