Posts by Tess de Castilla

Born in Cairo and educated in Paris, Marion de Champ (1914–2013) exhibited and worked between France and Egypt from the 1930s to the 1950s. Drawing on artworks, exhibition catalogues, and French- and Arabic-language press archives, including several previously unpublished documents, this article reconstructs the places, networks, and forms through which her work gained recognition. Contemporary critics followed the evolution of her painting, from the representation of subjects toward a freer construction of forms and colors. Yet this visibility did not secure her a lasting place in art history. Through her career, the article examines the mechanisms by which the works and trajectories of women artists are preserved, transmitted, or gradually erased. It thus invites us to reconsider trans-Mediterranean modernisms through the exchanges between Paris, Alexandria, and Cairo.