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Lot Essay
This trio of designs by renowned French artist Line Vautrin made their way from the fire and forge of the artisan’s workshop, through prominent Chicago-based interior decorating firm Watson & Boaler, before gracing the home and apparel of Ms. Terry Donahue, a legend of North American women’s athletics. Terry Donahue was a boundary-defying figure: a utility player for the Peoria Redwings; a women’s baseball team part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), and one of earliest women's professional sports leagues in the United States.
Operating from 1943-1954, the AAGPBL proved that women could play sports at the highest level, and gave girls the chance to show the world their skills and determination; a story which inspired the critically acclaimed film A League of Their Own (1992). Donahue also broke boundaries in her personal life, marrying her long-time romantic partner of over 70 years, Pat Henschel, in 2015; a moving story told in the Netflix Original Documentary A Secret Love (2020).
The career of Line Vautrin is similarly distinguished by a fierce individualism and rebellious spark. Vautrin’s distinctly chic, effervescent style was playful in a time of post-war austerity and modernist sensibilities. Her defining works: whimsical jewelry, gilt bronze 'Rebus' boxes with cunning inscriptions, and dazzling Talosel mirrors and brooches in boundless iterations, created a world of fantasy and poetry, imbued with a strong personal identity.
Line Vautrin’s Mirrors are perhaps her most evocative works; adorned with colorfully reflective tiles and textures created in resin, and transformed into individually handcrafted pieces of art. Vautrin started experimenting with cellulose acetate in the late 1940s and 1950s, developing her unique formulation, registered Talosel, from which she fashioned a range of works; including nearly 80 models of mirrors ranging in size and form. Starting with a central mirror, often in convex, surreal ‘sorcerer’s glass’, Vautrin crafted rays, set in with colorful fragments of mirrored glass flickering in a kaleidoscopic rhythm-- light rippling across the layers of tile and textured Talosel.
Both Line Vautrin and Terry Donahue were singular figures, women who forged their own paths, and lived and worked beyond the confines of their time. In the hands of Donahue, Vautrin’s works took on a new significance; joining the extraordinary legacies of two iconic women. Their pioneering legacies can be seen as mirrors of each other, embodying fully what it means to live life freely and defiantly.
“You kind of broke the rules your whole life.”
“Yes, I have. That’s why I’m happy.”
-Terry Donahue
Operating from 1943-1954, the AAGPBL proved that women could play sports at the highest level, and gave girls the chance to show the world their skills and determination; a story which inspired the critically acclaimed film A League of Their Own (1992). Donahue also broke boundaries in her personal life, marrying her long-time romantic partner of over 70 years, Pat Henschel, in 2015; a moving story told in the Netflix Original Documentary A Secret Love (2020).
The career of Line Vautrin is similarly distinguished by a fierce individualism and rebellious spark. Vautrin’s distinctly chic, effervescent style was playful in a time of post-war austerity and modernist sensibilities. Her defining works: whimsical jewelry, gilt bronze 'Rebus' boxes with cunning inscriptions, and dazzling Talosel mirrors and brooches in boundless iterations, created a world of fantasy and poetry, imbued with a strong personal identity.
Line Vautrin’s Mirrors are perhaps her most evocative works; adorned with colorfully reflective tiles and textures created in resin, and transformed into individually handcrafted pieces of art. Vautrin started experimenting with cellulose acetate in the late 1940s and 1950s, developing her unique formulation, registered Talosel, from which she fashioned a range of works; including nearly 80 models of mirrors ranging in size and form. Starting with a central mirror, often in convex, surreal ‘sorcerer’s glass’, Vautrin crafted rays, set in with colorful fragments of mirrored glass flickering in a kaleidoscopic rhythm-- light rippling across the layers of tile and textured Talosel.
Both Line Vautrin and Terry Donahue were singular figures, women who forged their own paths, and lived and worked beyond the confines of their time. In the hands of Donahue, Vautrin’s works took on a new significance; joining the extraordinary legacies of two iconic women. Their pioneering legacies can be seen as mirrors of each other, embodying fully what it means to live life freely and defiantly.
“You kind of broke the rules your whole life.”
“Yes, I have. That’s why I’m happy.”
-Terry Donahue