Mary Meerson, née Marija Popowa, also known as Madame Langlois (12 November 1902, Sofia – 19 July 1993, Paris), was a French ballet dancer, model and archivist of the

Cinémathèque Française The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...

. She was a companion and associate of

Henri Langlois Henri Langlois (; 13 November 1914 – 13 January 1977) was a French film archivist and cinephile. A pioneer of film preservation, Langlois was an influential figure in the history of cinema. His film screenings in Paris in the 1950s are often c ...

, the founder and director of the Cinémathèque Française.

Life

Marija Popowa was born on 12 November 1902 in

Sofia, Bulgaria Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

. She left her country traveling through central Europe and joined the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...

Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pat ...

in Monte Carlo and then in Paris. Along with her friend Kiki, the muse of the Montparnasse, Popowa was painted by the best known artists. In the late 1920s, she was a model for

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

and Reisling. In 1931, she posed as a model for the paintings of

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense Expressionism, expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the ...

. In the 1930s Popowa was connected to the Parisian artistic milieu and was acquainted with

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

and

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

. She made a sensational entry into the world of cinema through her meeting with

Lazare Meerson Lazare Meerson (1900–1938) was a Russian-born cinema art director. After emigrating to France in the early 1920s, he worked on French films of the late silent cinema and the early 1930s, particularly those directed by René Clair and Jacques Fe ...

, Russian constructivist painter, architect, whose ideas revolutionized the design of cinema sets. Popowa married Lazare Meerson. She accompanied him to London where he suddenly died in 1938. After his death, Mary Meerson met Henri Langlois, the founder of the Cinémathèque Française, and became his companion and closest collaborator. Meerson is known for short documentary ''Retour d'Henri Langlois à Paris'' (1968). She owned paintings of Picasso, Braque and Léger and sold them throughout her life to finance the Cinémathèque Française. Meerson remained Langlois’ partner until his death in 1977. After Langlois' death, Meerson continued his mission and considered that, Musée du Cinéma not only should become legal but also sponsored by the government. She called herself "Madame Langlois". In 1982, her initiative resulted in the creation of the Cinémathèque de la Danse as a part of the Cinémathèque Française. Meerson spoke Russian, Bulgarian, French, English, Italian, German, Yiddish, Mandarin Chinese and Sanskrit. Mary Meerson died on 19 July 1993 in Paris, aged 90.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meerson, Mary 1902 births 1993 deaths 20th-century French ballet dancers