CLEMENTINE HELENE DUFAU (1869-1937) LA FRONDE. 1898. 39x54 inches, 99x137 1/4 cm. Charles Verneau, Paris. Condition B+: repaired tears and extensive overpainting in margins. Dufau, primarily a painter, took much of her inspiration from the Basque country from whence her family came. Although she was not a professional graphic artist, every time she tried her hand at designing a poster, she was successful. In 1896 she won a contest to design a poster for the Bal des Increvables, and in 1903 she won another competition for her poster for Byrrh tonic. In 1898, Dufau was accepted as a member of the Société des Artistes Français. That same year, she was commissioned to design a poster to advertise a new feminist magazine, La Fronde. "La Fronde was the organ of the French radical feminist movement founded by the suffragette Marguerite Durand. The magazine aroused much controversy, and local ordinances were passed forbidding its dissemination in schools and workplaces, or sale on newsstands . . . the woman in green obviously stands for Durand, symbolically pointing the way forward to her followers" (Gold p. 72). Crauzat, writing in l'Estampe et l'Affiche, referred to this poster as a "superb composition of grandiose realism and vibrating symbolism." That Dufau's work was inspired by Steinlen is clear, but in return his work may have been influenced by hers, as his poster Le Petit Sou (1900) is conceptually constructed the same way. DFP-II 313, Gold 98, Maitres 1900 p. 59, Wember 234, Wine Spectator 106.
