Mariette Lydis

Mariette Lydis was an Austrian-born French painter and printmaker best known for her delicate and moody portraits. Influenced by the paintings of Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Lydis’s work often exuded a sense that her subjects are anxious or dreaming. Born Mariette Ronsperger on August 24, 1887 in Vienna, Austria to a well to do family of Jewish merchants, Lydis’s early life was steeped in theater, poetry, and opera. This exposure to cultural events made a lasting impact on her visual art. In 1922, the artist married Jean Lydis, though she left him soon afterward, she kept his name throughout the rest of her life. Living in Paris during the Nazi invasion, Lydis fled to England then South America with her lover Erica Marx, settling there until her death on April 26, 1970 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today, her works are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University.