Elena Izcue, Lima-Paris, années 30

She was a highly appreciated collaborator of Worth the designer but the name of Elena Izcue (1889-1970) has been absent from Parisian memories for a long time now. Graduated at the beginning of the 1920s from the brand new school of Beaux-Arts of Lima, she participated in her own way to the birth of a Peruvian artistic identity. At the time Hiram Bingham, leading an expedition from the university of Yale, had just discovered Macchu Picchu. The Moche and Chavin cultures were discovered right after, as well as the remarkable textiles from Paracas, with their bright colors and their stylized motives. This was the aspect of the precolombian civilization that fascinated Elena Izcue: she worked over and over on the friezes, the frets, the schematic animals with large eyes and big beaks. Following a historic introduction, recalling in particular her role in the Peruvian pedagogic movement, the work offers a reproduction of her drawing boards, her watercolors, drawings or materials of hand printed natural silk. World War II interrupted Elena Izcue’s activity in Paris. Once she was back in Peru she directed workshops of graphic art but she never found the influence she had before the war.

• Elena Izcue, Lima-Paris, années 30, directed by Natalia Majluf, coedition Musée du quai Branly / Flammarion, 2008, 120 p., 30 €, ISBN : 978-2-0812-1283-1