EDITH DESTERNES

FOR SALE IN OUR COLLECTION

Biography

Céline Édith Desternes was born in Paris on February 21, 1901. She was the daughter of Louis Desternes (1864-1936), professor at the Lycée Charlemagne and sister of Suzanne Desternes (3 Prix de l'Académie Française). Pupil and muse of the painter Gaston Simoes of Fonseca (himself a pupil of Jean Léon Gérôme), she abandoned her activity of creating contemporary bindings for painting in the 1920s. Painter of Montparnasse, she frequented the high places of French painting of the time.

She exhibited her works with Fonseca before the war at the Barreiro gallery, rue de Seine and participated in the Salon des Indépendants. She is also a member of the Salon d'automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon du dessin et de peinture à l'eau.

In the 1950s, she decided to devote herself to painting on glass which she presented on several occasions at the Galerie Bruno Bassano (1956).

Ten years later, the Japanese painter Toshio Bando (1895-1973) encouraged her to work in gouache. Her gouaches will be noticed and appreciated by art critic Raymond Charmet. She guides and encourages Jean Guitton to paint. The latter will recognize his influence on several occasions, and they will often exhibit together in Paris (at the Katia Granoff gallery) and in the provinces (Montluçon in Bourbonnais).

In the 1990s, she rediscovered a taste for painting on glass and won the grand prize for gemmail in Lourdes. Her works are exhibited at the Salon d'Automne.

The themes of her exhibitions will be: Fonseca and Desternes, the Loire and the Bourbonnais, where his family ties are very deeply rooted, Spain (Medici gallery 1976), Corsica, Women and Flowers, Anaïs Nin, the Poems by Katia Granoff (1984).

Desternes painted portraits of Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Anaïs Nin, actress Moune de Rivel and Silvia Monfort, all exhibited at the Salon d'automne.

She died in La Charité-sur-Loire on November 3, 2000. She was buried in the cemetery of Moulins.

Exhibitions

- Salon d'Automne

- Salon des Indépendants

- Salon des Tuileries

- Salon du Dessin et de la Peinture à l'eau

- Numerous gallery exhibitions, including

. Galerie Barreiro, 30 rue de Seine, 75006 Paris

. Galerie Bruno Bassano, 9 rue Grégoire-de-Tours, 75006 Paris

. Galerie Katia Granoff, place Beauvau, 75008 Paris

. Galerie Médicis, Paris

Collections

- Albert Sarraut, President of the Council of the Third Republic

- Jacques Fath, great French fashion designer

- Claude Ducommun (donation to the Museum of Art and History of the city of Neuchâtel)

- Besançon de Wagner (Maggy Rouff), great Parisian designer and perfumes

- State purchases before the war, 1938 and 1947

- Purchases of the city of Paris, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1960