Untitled, Circa 1960

Mariette Lydis  

Mariette Lydis (Vienna 1887-Buenos Aires 1970) is an Austrian painter and illustrator who was successful in Paris, in the 1930s, in Montparnasse, then in Argentina where she emigrated in 1940. Mariette Lydis was born in Vienna in Austria, August 24, 1887, under the name of Marietta Ronsperger, daughter of Franz Ronsperger and Eugenia Fischer. His sister Edith Ronsperger, born February 12, 1880, creator of opera libretto, committed suicide in Florence in 1921, and her brother Richard, born March 14, 1881, and died February 15, 1932, was reportedly interned. From 1919 to 1922, she signed her works with the initials MPK for Marietta Pachoffer Karñy, a name resulting from her first marriage in 1910 with Julius Koloman Pachoffer-Karñy who died on 4/22/1922. Then married to Jean Lydis, she lives in Castella near Athens. The couple separated in 1925. She then lived near Florence Villa Ruspoli, San Domenico di Fiesole in Italy. In 1925, she met Massimo Bontempelli who took her to Paris. She moved to France from 1926 to 1939. During these years she exhibited and became a member of the Salon d'Automne chaired by Frantz Jourdain. She became friends with Count Giuseppe Govone, art publisher, in 1928 and married him on August 1, 1934. For him she illustrated the books of many authors and maintained a great friendship with Henry de Montherlant which materialized by the edition in 1938 of a first monograph prefaced by the author of Les Jeunes Filles. Fearing the German invasion, she left for England with her editor friend Erica Marx; after Cobham she took refuge in Winchcombe, in 1939, until her departure for Buenos Aires in July 1940. In 1949 she published her recent paintings and drawings in Mariette Lydis (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Françaises, 1949), with a preface by Henry from Montherlant. This collection of sixteen works contains, for example, Legato (drawing, 1943); Pietà (drawing, 1943); I am the Mother of Our Lord (drawing); and especially his masterpiece Doña Gregoria (drawing, 1944). A donation to the Museum of Buenos Aires (Museo Eduardo Sivori) in 1969 secured him posterity as an Argentinian artist. She died on April 26, 1970, and is buried in the cemetery in the Recoleta neighborhood in Buenos Aires.