Alice Bailly
(b Geneva, 25 Feb 1872; d Lausanne, 1 Jan
1938). Swiss painter and multimedia artist. From 1890/91 she studied
under Hugues Bovy (1841–1903) and Denise Sarkissof at the Ecole
d’Art in Geneva. A travel scholarship enabled her to study in Munich
for a year. From 1904 until the outbreak of World War I Bailly lived
in Paris, where she associated with Cubist artists, including Albert
Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Marie Laurencin and Sonia
Lewitska (1882–1914). From 1905 to 1926 she exhibited regularly at
the Salon d’Automne. From 1906 to 1910 her work was influenced by
Fauvism, and from 1910 she became interested in Cubism and Futurism:
Equestrian Fantasy with Pink Lady (1913; Zurich, Gal. Strunskaja) is
reminiscent of the work of Gino Severini or Franz Marc in its
rhythmic movement and planar fragmentation of horses and riders into
coloured patterns. Other paintings of this period that are also
indebted to these movements include Mme Hodler at the Perle du Lac
(1919; Geneva, Mus. A. & Hist.; see SWITZERLAND, fig. 9). From 1913
or 1916 she executed over 50 tableaux-laine, in which she used
coloured strands of wool as a painter would apply brushstrokes, for
example the Man with the Golden Heart (Portrait of Werner Reinhart)
(1920; Winterthur Collegium). She also produced mixed-media works,
combining oil paint with coloured papers, bronze foil, glass beads,
felt and appliqué, as in the portrait of Raymonde Naville (1916;
Lausanne, Fond. Alice Bailly). In 1918 she became involved with the
Dada circle in Zurich. She settled in Lausanne in 1923. Her last
major project was the mural (1936–7; in situ) across three walls for
the foyer of the Théâtre Municipal, Lausanne. One wall is devoted to
the Life of a Ballet Dancer and a second, facing wall to an
Equestrian Fantasy; Bailly linked the two with a four-section frieze
depicting a Harlequinade painted on one of the adjoining walls at a
later stage.
