Unveilling Aicha Goblet: The Model In demand Of Montparnasse

June 20, 2022

“If Aïcha is often naked, she rarely undoes her head kerchief—now cabbage-green, now the color of silver—which suits her so well. Aïcha is too much a girl from Roubaix not to be perfectly civilized. She sits, she dances, she is pleasant. Long before Josephine Baker launched the fashion of banana belts, Aïcha wore, at wild parties in Montparnasse, her diminutive raffia skirt.” – Andre Salmon, Poet, Writer and Art Critic

My first encounter with the painting came in the course of my pursuit of headwrap and turban representations in Western art. Examining numerous paintings, ‘Portrait of Madeleine’ (1800) by Marie-Guillemine Benoist, ‘The Lovers’ (1928) by René Magritte, ‘Woman from Martinique with Turban’ (1928) by Jules Pascin, ‘Between The Two My Heart Is Balanced’(1991) by Lubaina Himid, and other sources namely ‘Les Robes de Paul Poiret’ par Paul Tribe (1908). I was lured in instantly by Felix Valloton’s ‘Aicha’ (1922), as I had never encountered it before unlike other finds. It was just brilliantly impressive painting.

I was struck by the composure, poise and grace exuded by this figure, draped in an emerald green robe, the red pearl necklace around her neck, the metallic turban styled on her head and the nakedness of her skin adding to the appeal. This curiosity turned desire to give visibility to this figure “even while in plain view” as art historian Denise Murrell so well points out in ‘Posing Modernity’ – an essay-cum-groundbreaking exhibition – in which she explores the central contribution of black female models to the development of modern art.

In the 1920s, Montparnasse was the centre and focus of creativity, with its lovely cafés, bohemian bars and studios. The advent of Cubism, Surrealism and Dadaism transformed Paris into the home of avant-garde. Writers, painters, photographers flocked in from Japan like Tsuguharu Foujita, Russia like Wassily Kandinsky, Belarus like Chaim Soutine, Italy like Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso, all looking to find inspiration in the Parisian setting renowned for its intellectual, artistic and sexual freedoms.

“If Aïcha is often naked, she rarely undoes her head kerchief—now cabbage-green, now the color of silver—which suits her so well. Aïcha is too much a girl from Roubaix not to be perfectly civilized. She sits, she dances, she is pleasant. Long before Josephine Baker launched the fashion of banana belts, Aïcha wore, at wild parties in Montparnasse, her diminutive raffia skirt.” – Andre Salmon, Poet, Writer and Art Critic

In the 1920s, Montparnasse was the centre and focus of creativity, with its lovely cafés, bohemian bars and studios. The advent of Cubism, Surrealism and Dadaism transformed Paris into the home of avant-garde. Writers, painters, photographers flocked in from Japan like Tsuguharu Foujita, Russia like…., Belarus like Chaim Soutine, Italy like Amedeo Modigliani, all looking to find inspiration in the Parisian setting which, at the time, was renowned for its intellectual, artistic and sexual freedoms. It is in this very bohemian hub, on the Left Bank of the river Seine that Aicha Goblet became a sensation. In the studios of Montparnasse, Aicha was the belle du jour, she worked as a model, dancer and self-trained actress.

Jules Pascin’s muse and Kiki de Montparnasse’s friend, Aicha Goblet’s life was effervescent and exciting, such a rarity for black models to be found during this period, that Pascin kept her to himself in his quarters for an entire year, away from peering eyes of other artists from Ecole de Paris who waited impatiently at their turn at painting her.

Aicha arrived in Paris in 1911-14 just before the war. Little is known about her life, in fact the accounts in which she meets Jules Pascin who is credited with discovering her – though I am tempted to use the modern term ‘scouting her’ – lack a little bit in detail. The most luster account of Aicha Goblet I have come across is in a French investigative piece on a blog – blogmontparnos.paris – a commendable piece of research at that – which states that Pascin and Goblet met ‘sur le boulevard de la Madeleine’ – on Madeleine Boulevard; and off they went towards Vavin junction, following an initial encounter, one would presume, at the circus where she had worked alongside her family as a horse bareback rider, until aged 15.

“Mais comme j’avais l’intention de quitter le cirque, ils m’ont donné leur adresse et je suis venue à Paris. Et c’est comme ça que je suis arrivée au café du Dôme, que j’ai rencontré Pascin, que je suis devenue son modèle, qu’il m’a gardé pendant un an très jalousement… J’ai posé pendant un an pour lui et un jour que Pascin m’avait laissée, comme tout Montparnasse voulait m’avoir comme modèle, j’ai volé de mes propres ailes. » – Aïcha dans Le Petit Journal (28 décembre 1929)

“But since I had the intention of leaving the circus, they gave me their address, and I came to Paris. And this is how I arrived at the café du Dôme, where I met Pascin, and became his model, where he guarded me very jealously for one year… I modeled for a year for him and one day when Pascin released me, since all of Montparnasse desired to have me as a model, I cast my own wings and flew away. » – Aïcha in Le Petit Journal newspaper (28 décembre 1929)

Aicha quickly became an emblematic figure, finding herself on the canvases of all the great contemporary artists such as Henri Matisse, Moise Kisling, Man Ray, Jacques Mathey, Amedeo Modigliani and others. In 1930, she declared “dans leurs toiles, je ne me suis jamais reconnue’ ; “I never recognised myself on their canvases”. She was the muse in Andre Salmon’s 1920 novel ‘La Négresse du Sacré Cœur’ and featured in theater playing the character ‘Nyota’ In Herman Gregoire’s Haya (1922) amongst others.

And she continued to live life vivaciously as an exotic celebrity of the quarter, dating some of the most prominent artists of the time including Pascin and notably Jewish artist Samuel Granowsky,better known as “the cowboy of Montparnasse”, and like most of the artist’s models of the 1920s, gaining prominence even more widely recognised than female artists at the time.

Aicha may have been born circa 1898, of a Belgian mother and father from Martinique. Her allure and friendliness earned her great admiration and friendships with strong mutual trust among the most noted artists from Ecole de Paris and beyond. Kiki de Montparnasse in her memoirs wrote:

“One looks for a ray of sunlight at the Dome, at the Select. The models meet each other there. They are true to their trade: Aicha, Bouboule, clara… there are few girls left that are as nice as they are.” – Alice Prin, namely Kiki de Montparnasse

Despite the limited attention she garnered, Aicha Goblet remains a strikingly resonant figure, shedding light on the personal stories between the artist and the model. At a banquet held at La Coupole in 1929 to honour notable figures of the artist community, she is referenced in Paris-Montparnasse magazine: “surrounded by friends and many flowers, Goblet presided over her dinner with grace and kept her famous smile to the end of the dinner”. It underlines that Goblet was very active during the roaring 20s, paving the way for future black starlets and models. She left an irreplaceable mark, illuminating the legacy of Montparnasse and its exotic night world from which the likes of Josephine Baker would eventually emerge.