LAURENCIN, MARIE

born Oct. 31, 1883, Paris, Fr. died June 8, 1956, Paris French painter and printmaker, known particularly for her delicate watercolours of elegant, vaguely melancholic women. At the Acadmie Humbart, where she studied art, Georges Braque was among her classmates. Gertrude Stein was one of the first buyers of her work. Although she flourished in the Montmartre milieu of the Cubists, Laurencin did not herself exploit the movement's idiom. The distinct femininity of her subject matter, colourism, and technique earned her the nickname La Fauvette. As companion to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, she produced several portraits of him and of their friends. Her stage designs include scenery for the Ballets Russes (1924) and the Comdie Franaise (1928).