CILETTE OFAIRE (Couvet 1891 - 1964 Sanary-sur-Mer), Suzanne

CILETTE OFAIRE*
(Couvet 1891 - 1964 Sanary-sur-Mer)
Suzanne
watercolor/paper, 44,5 x 34,5 cm
signed Cilette and verso inscribed Suzanne
Provenance: European private collection

ESTIMATE °€ 800 - 1.500
START € 800

Swiss artist and writer of the 20th century. From 1907 to 1908 at the School of Applied Arts in Basel. Worked in the studio of the English glass painter and mosaic artist Clement Heaton in Corcelles-Cormondrèche from 1909 to 1912. Wrote seven novels under the French name Cilette Ofaire. From 1912 she lived in Paris with the artist Charles Hofer. They traveled by houseboat across canals and rivers throughout Europe. After they separated, she traveled alone on her boat Isme as the first state-patented female captain until she lost her boat in the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. The themes of her books were always the insatiable longing for freedom through the eyes of a woman. Only a few works of visual art survived, influence of the New Objectivity.

Cécile Hofer-Houriet, born on January 13, 1891 in Couvet in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, died on December 11, 1964 in Sanary-sur-Mer, France, author of seven novels that appeared under the French author's name Cilette Ofaire. From 1912 she lived in Paris with her husband Charles Hofer. In addition to her passion for painting and drawing, she worked as a secretary and also as a nude model. The artist couple sailed canals and rivers all over Europe in their houseboat, which became Ofaire's first literary work "Le San Luca". After the separation, she undertook further sea voyages, but lost her ship in the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. However, in the novel "L'Ismé", which was written in 1938/39 in a village near Toulon and was first published in 1940 by the Lausanne Guilde du Livre, it got going again: as a strangely astonishing image and symbol of the insatiable longing of a courageous woman for boundless, uncivil freedom. The Swiss flag flew over the stern of the Ismé, and even as an author, Cilette Ofaire never completely lost sight of her homeland. As early as 1938, the cycle of stories "Sylvie Velsey" contains wistful memories of her childhood in the Jura, and her most compact book, the novel "Chemins" from 1945, reflects a true experience from 1935 and depicts a brief return of the 44-year-old Sylvie to the Val -de-travers. In 1961 she had difficulty finding a publisher for her last book, «La Place», and after her death on December 11, 1964, Cilette Ofaire was quickly forgotten completely, until 1987 when the Cantonal and University Library of Neuchâtel opened a comprehensive exhibition of her works in her memory.

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