Mariette, Comtesse Govone, lived an extraordinary life of adventure and sexual intrigue. She was born Marietta Ronsperger in Vienna in 1887 (or, depending on which source you believe, 1890, 1892, or 1894). She married Jean Lydis in 1922, but left him for the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli, who took her to Paris. In 1928 Mariette Lydis married the art publisher Comte Giuseppi Govone. Lydis had a great artistic success in 30s Paris, starting with a solo show at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune, after which she became a member and a juror at the Salon de Automne. Mariette Lydis fled the Nazis invasion of France with her lover Erica Marx, taking refuge in the sleepy Cotswold town of Winchcombe, before making a perilous voyage to Buenos Aires. Lydis was also close to the aviator Amelia Earhart. Mariette Lydis lived in Argentina for the rest of her life. Her style was influenced by that of the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, whom she knew in Montmartre. There is always an edge of ambiguous sexuality and danger in the art of Mariette Lydis, well-represented in our prints, hand-coloured drypoints for Verlaine's Parallelement and etchings and aquatints illustrating the poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Her work is in many major museums and collections worldwide.
Mariette Lydis working with a model
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