Influenced by Lovis Corinth whose classes she attended in Berlin, her early paintings are realistic but her style becomes purist, making reality geometric.
Around the year 1925, she attends classes given by Amédée Ozenfant and Fernand Leger. She moves towards abstraction.. Michel Seuphor invites her to become a member of the group " Cercle et Carré ", her painting is now linear, very structured.
From 1952 on Marcelle Cahn works on drawings and collages with poetic license, diverting ordinary everyday objects like envelopes, labels, photographs, postcards and coloured stickers.
In the early sixties she creates her first " spacial mobiles ", sculptures consisting of flat surfaces articulated in space, sometimes monochromatic. At that time in her painting she focuses on the line, its constructive power and demands.
Right up through her last years of life she keeps working hard continually trying new things.
Stéphane Mroczkowski
The Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art has identified 346 works in the Marcelle Cahn collection and has made them available online, 98 of which with photos.
A doctoral thesis about Marcelle Cahn can be consulted at the Arts Library of the University Strasbourg.
CORDONNIER-KRAFT Mireille. Marcelle Cahn (1895-1981). Sa vie. Son œuvre. Catalogue raisonné. Vol 1, 576 pages. Vol 2, 359 pages. Thèse de Doctorat de l'Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, 1995.
