Madeleine Luka (1894–1989), Daisies, Oil On Canvas

Signed lower right
35.5 x 27.5 cm

Born in 1894 in Val-d’Oise, Madeleine Bottet (known as Madeleine Luka) adopted an artist’s name based on that of her husband, Robert Kula. Self-taught, she taught herself painting and poetry. She is counted among the naïve painters who flourished without a teacher or method.

Madeleine Luka’s painting reflects her rejection of technicality and intellectualism, “scourges of the 20th century” as described by her writer friend Francis Jammes (1868–1938)*. Painting the spontaneous innocence of her family circle fulfills a deep need within the young woman. A tender childhood, a dreamy adolescence, a fragile motherhood, and animals depicted in a celebratory natural setting constitute her favorite themes. Her world, constructed like an Eden, is populated by figures full of grace and innocence. Her paintings transcend space and time to evoke the sounds and scents of happy memories now made eternal.

Critics welcomed her work, quickly overlooking the clumsiness of her early days. The historian Élie Faure (1873–1937) saw in her work a depiction of simple feelings, a revitalizing style that “does not seek conformity outside the heart”**.

Madeleine Luka exhibited regularly at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon d’Automne between 1927 and 1938. Starting in 1931, she participated in group exhibitions organized by the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes, founded by Marie-Anne Camax-Zoegger. In 1935, her work was shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery as well as in various postwar French galleries.

*Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, Madeleine Luka, peintures, Paris, Éditions André Saurêt, 1976.
**Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, Madeleine Luka, Paintings, Paris, Éditions André Sauret, 1976, pp. 10–11; presentation of the Madeleine Luka exhibition at the Simonson Gallery, April 1931.

Public Collections
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art
Paris, Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts
Albi, Toulouse-Lautrec Museum
Grenoble, Museum of Fine Arts
L’Isle-Adam, Louis Senlecq Museum of Art and History
Amiens, Picardy Museum