DONAS, MARTHE (Belgian, 1885-1967)

Donas is Belgium’s first internationally renowned abstract artist. She first attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp, 1902-5, before arriving in Paris in 1916, where she enrolled at the Académies Libres in Montparnasse and also entered the studios of both Lhote and Archipenko.
She was deeply impressed by the Cubist philosophy and soon struck up friendship with a number of eminent painters.
By 1919, Theo Van Doesburg had reproduced her work in the periodical De Stijl and Donas had become a member of the Section d’Or, a group of artists around Jacques Villon, with whom she exhibited in London in 1919.
That same year she had her first one-man show in Geneva as well as a number of group exhibitions all over Europe.
Her canvases appeared alongside those of Gleizes, Kupka, Braque, Léger and Archipenko.
Concerned that her female identity might discourage prospective buyers, Marthe began signing her work ambiguously ‘Tour Donas’, which Van Doesburg later persuaded her to change this to ‘Tour d’Onasky’.
Year 1919 and 1920 were the most significant two years in Donas career.
In 1920, Herwath Walden invited Donas to exhibit at his famous Der Sturm Gallery, where she received great success, and in the same year he used one of her drawings to illustrate the title page of the Der Sturm magazine.
The renowned collector Katherine Dreier purchased five pieces by Donas from the 1920 show, and these are now in the Yale University Art Gallery.
She returned to Antwerp in 1920-21, before giving painting a break during 1927-37, followed by a figurative period of absent ten years, only to turn to abstraction again in 1949.
A retrospective exhibition of her work was held in Brussels in 1960.

Public collections include:
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, USA