Eugenia Errázuriz
Encyclopedia
Eugenia Huici Arguedas de Errázuriz (15 September 1860 – 1951) was a Chile
an patron of modernism and a style leader of Paris from 1880 into the 20th century, who paved the way for the modernist minimalist aesthetic that would be taken up in fashion by Coco Chanel
. Her circle of friends and protégés included Pablo Picasso
, Igor Stravinsky
, Jean Cocteau
, and the poet Blaise Cendrars
. She was of Basque
descent.
n parents, one of thirteen children born to Ildefonso Huici y Peón, a silver magnate who had fled civil war and moved his family to their estates in La Calera
, then a village in the banks of the Aconcagua river
, some sixty kilometers (about forty miles) northeast of Valparaíso
. Her mother was Manuela Arguedas. Among her siblings were two sisters, Rosa and Ana, and a brother, José.
She was also an aunt of Patricia Lopez-Willshaw (1912–2010) née Lopez-Huci, who was married to Arturo Lopez-Willshaw (1900–1962).
Eugenia was famous from an early age for her beauty; French nuns supervised the girl's education. The young woman added to her silver-mine inheritance by marrying José Tomás Errázuriz
; a young and wealthy landscape painter from a well-known winemaking family. Her first years of marriage were spent at Panquehue Errázuriz, the family's wine estate, where she had a son who died soon after birth; the couple eventually had three surviving children: Maximiliano, Carmen, and María. She soon convinced her husband to move to Paris in 1882, where his brother-in-law Ramón Subercaseaux was the Chilean consul and was married to Amalia Errázuriz, a beauty who had been painted by John Singer Sargent
.
The couple settled in Paris, where Eugenia attracted a high-profile following. In the autumn of that year, they met John Singer Sargent
while they were visiting Venice
, possibly on their honeymoon, and seeing José's brother who had taken a studio with Sargent at the Palazzo Rezzonico. Described as an extraordinary beauty, with a beaked nose and raven hair, she was painted by Sargent (who had previously painted Madame Subercaseaux in 1880). Sargent became very fond of Madame Errázuriz and would paint her several times. Besides Sargent, she was also painted by Jacques-Emile Blanche (French painter 1861–1942), Giovanni Boldini
, Paul Helleu, Augustus John
, Ambrose McEvoy
, and Pablo Picasso
.
After the Errázuriz settled in Paris, they became friends with many in the same circle as the Subercaseauxes: the American heiress Winnareta Singer; the French composer Gabriel Fauré
; French painters Joseph Roger-Jourdain, Ernest Duez, and Paul Helleu; and the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini. Eugenia was an avid supporter of the arts and she sought out artists, supporting both Stravinsky
and Diaghilev
at one point, and establishing friendships with such noted writers and musicians as W. R. Sickert, Baron de Meyer, Jean Cocteau
, and Cecil Beaton.
Around 1900, the Errázurizzes relocated to Chelsea, London
. José Tomás Errázuriz fell sick with tuberculosis and spent much time in Switzerland
; the couple became estranged before he died in 1927. After a six-year stay in London, Eugenia Errazuriz relocated to Biarritz
. She then took up with her homosexual opium-taking nephew, Antonio de Gandarillas, known as Tony – the only child of her sister Rosa and Senator José Antonio Gandarillas Luco – and Tony's companion, an aspiring painter named Christopher Wood
. Tony and Eugenia also became friends of Sergei Diaghilev
and of Artur Rubinstein. Pablo Picasso
adored her (she became known as "Picasso's Other Mother"); and in the summer of 1918, he and his new wife, Olga Khokhlova
, spent their honeymoon in her villa near Biarritz.
Cecil Beaton
noted the red-tile floors that were carpetless but spotlessly clean. He also wrote of her in The Glass of Fashion: Her effect on the taste of the last fifty years has been so enormous that the whole aesthetic of modern interior decoration, and many of the concepts of simplicity...generally acknowledged today, can be laid at her remarkable doorstep. Her tea table offered simple fare (no "vulgar" cakes), according to Beaton, who noted that her toast "was a work of art." Her niece rhapsodized, Everything in Aunt Eugenia's house smelled so good. It was reported that the towels smelled of lavender, and that she washed her hair in rainwater. Errazuriz detested matched sets of furniture, knick-knacks and mementos. Ruthless on the subject of disorder – even down to the bureau drawers – she ordered: Throw out and keep throwing out. This was an extension of her belief in the necessity of constant change: A house that does not alter, she liked to say, is a dead house. Errazuriz projected her purist mode into every corner of her life. If the kitchen is not as well kept as the salon . . . you cannot have a beautiful house, she declared.
The designer Jean-Michel Frank
became her most gifted disciple. Jean Cocteau
introduced Blaise Cendrars
to her, who proved a supportive if at times possessive patron. Around 1918 he visited her house and was so taken with the simplicity of the décor, he was inspired to write the sequence of poems D'Oultremer à Indigo (From Ultramarine to Indigo). He stayed with Eugenia in her house in Biarritz
, in a room decorated with murals by Pablo Picasso
.
Late in Life, Eugenia Errázuriz became a tertiary Franciscan (a lay nun), outfitted in a plain black habit designed by another minimalist, Coco Chanel
. A fitting environment for this wardrobe was never built. Although Le Corbusier
was commissioned to design her beach house in Chile
, she let the project lapse before she died in Santiago
in 1951, hit by a car while crossing a street at the age of 94. The house, to be known as Villa Eugenia, was eventually built in Japan.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an patron of modernism and a style leader of Paris from 1880 into the 20th century, who paved the way for the modernist minimalist aesthetic that would be taken up in fashion by Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...
. Her circle of friends and protégés included Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, and the poet Blaise Cendrars
Blaise Cendrars
Frédéric Louis Sauser , better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized French in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the modernist movement.-Early years:...
. She was of Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
descent.
Biography
Eugenia Huici was born in Chile of BoliviaBolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n parents, one of thirteen children born to Ildefonso Huici y Peón, a silver magnate who had fled civil war and moved his family to their estates in La Calera
La Calera, Chile
La Calera is a city and commune in the Quillota Province of central Chile's fifth region of Valparaíso.-Geography:La Calera is located from Valparaíso, and from Santiago. Its area is...
, then a village in the banks of the Aconcagua river
Aconcagua River
For other uses, see Aconcagua .The Aconcagua River is a river in Chile that rises from the joint of two minor tributary rivers at above sea level in the Andes, Juncal river from the east and Blanco river from the south east...
, some sixty kilometers (about forty miles) northeast of Valparaíso
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...
. Her mother was Manuela Arguedas. Among her siblings were two sisters, Rosa and Ana, and a brother, José.
She was also an aunt of Patricia Lopez-Willshaw (1912–2010) née Lopez-Huci, who was married to Arturo Lopez-Willshaw (1900–1962).
Eugenia was famous from an early age for her beauty; French nuns supervised the girl's education. The young woman added to her silver-mine inheritance by marrying José Tomás Errázuriz
José Tomás Errázuriz
José Tomás Errázuriz Urmeneta was a Chilean landscape painter and diplomat. He was of Basque descent.José Tomás Errázuriz was born in Santiago, the son of Maximiano Errázuriz Valdivieso and of Amalia Urmeneta Quiroga...
; a young and wealthy landscape painter from a well-known winemaking family. Her first years of marriage were spent at Panquehue Errázuriz, the family's wine estate, where she had a son who died soon after birth; the couple eventually had three surviving children: Maximiliano, Carmen, and María. She soon convinced her husband to move to Paris in 1882, where his brother-in-law Ramón Subercaseaux was the Chilean consul and was married to Amalia Errázuriz, a beauty who had been painted by John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
.
The couple settled in Paris, where Eugenia attracted a high-profile following. In the autumn of that year, they met John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
while they were visiting Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, possibly on their honeymoon, and seeing José's brother who had taken a studio with Sargent at the Palazzo Rezzonico. Described as an extraordinary beauty, with a beaked nose and raven hair, she was painted by Sargent (who had previously painted Madame Subercaseaux in 1880). Sargent became very fond of Madame Errázuriz and would paint her several times. Besides Sargent, she was also painted by Jacques-Emile Blanche (French painter 1861–1942), Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to , he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.-Early life:...
, Paul Helleu, Augustus John
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, Ambrose McEvoy
Ambrose McEvoy
Ambrose McEvoy was an English artist. His early works are landscapes and interiors with figures, in a style influenced by James McNeill Whistler. Later he gained success as a portrait painter, mainly of women and often in watercolour.-Biography:McEvoy was born on 12 August 1878 in Crudwell,...
, and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
.
After the Errázuriz settled in Paris, they became friends with many in the same circle as the Subercaseauxes: the American heiress Winnareta Singer; the French composer Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
; French painters Joseph Roger-Jourdain, Ernest Duez, and Paul Helleu; and the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini. Eugenia was an avid supporter of the arts and she sought out artists, supporting both Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
at one point, and establishing friendships with such noted writers and musicians as W. R. Sickert, Baron de Meyer, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, and Cecil Beaton.
Around 1900, the Errázurizzes relocated to Chelsea, London
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
. José Tomás Errázuriz fell sick with tuberculosis and spent much time in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
; the couple became estranged before he died in 1927. After a six-year stay in London, Eugenia Errazuriz relocated to Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
. She then took up with her homosexual opium-taking nephew, Antonio de Gandarillas, known as Tony – the only child of her sister Rosa and Senator José Antonio Gandarillas Luco – and Tony's companion, an aspiring painter named Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood (English painter)
John Christopher Wood , often called Kit Wood, was an English painter born in Knowsley, near Liverpool.-Biography:-Early life:Christopher Wood was born in Knowsley to Doctor Lucius and Clare Wood...
. Tony and Eugenia also became friends of Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
and of Artur Rubinstein. Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
adored her (she became known as "Picasso's Other Mother"); and in the summer of 1918, he and his new wife, Olga Khokhlova
Olga Khokhlova
Olga Stepanovna Khokhlova was a Ukrainian-Russian dancer, better known as the first wife of Pablo Picasso and the mother of his son, Paulo.- Biography:Olga was born in Nizhyn, Russian Empire, now Ukraine....
, spent their honeymoon in her villa near Biarritz.
Assessment
Her villa, La Mimoseraie, was the design laboratory in which she elevated simplicity to an art form. In 1910, wrote Richardson, "she already stood out for the unconventional sparseness of her rooms, for her disdain of poufs and potted palms and too much passementerie.... She appreciated things that were very fine and simple, above all, things made of linen, cotton, deal, or stone, whose quality improved with laundering or fading, scrubbing or polishing. She attended to the smallest detail in her house". For her, Elegance means elimination. Errazuriz hung curtains of unlined linen, and whitewashed the walls like a peasant's home – a shocking decorating approach in 1914. I love my house as it looks very clean and very poor! she boasted.Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
noted the red-tile floors that were carpetless but spotlessly clean. He also wrote of her in The Glass of Fashion: Her effect on the taste of the last fifty years has been so enormous that the whole aesthetic of modern interior decoration, and many of the concepts of simplicity...generally acknowledged today, can be laid at her remarkable doorstep. Her tea table offered simple fare (no "vulgar" cakes), according to Beaton, who noted that her toast "was a work of art." Her niece rhapsodized, Everything in Aunt Eugenia's house smelled so good. It was reported that the towels smelled of lavender, and that she washed her hair in rainwater. Errazuriz detested matched sets of furniture, knick-knacks and mementos. Ruthless on the subject of disorder – even down to the bureau drawers – she ordered: Throw out and keep throwing out. This was an extension of her belief in the necessity of constant change: A house that does not alter, she liked to say, is a dead house. Errazuriz projected her purist mode into every corner of her life. If the kitchen is not as well kept as the salon . . . you cannot have a beautiful house, she declared.
The designer Jean-Michel Frank
Jean-Michel Frank
Jean-Michel Frank was a French interior designer known for minimalist interiors decorated with plain-lined but sumptuous furniture made of luxury materials, such as shagreen, mica, and intricate straw marquetry.-Life and career:...
became her most gifted disciple. Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
introduced Blaise Cendrars
Blaise Cendrars
Frédéric Louis Sauser , better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss novelist and poet naturalized French in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the modernist movement.-Early years:...
to her, who proved a supportive if at times possessive patron. Around 1918 he visited her house and was so taken with the simplicity of the décor, he was inspired to write the sequence of poems D'Oultremer à Indigo (From Ultramarine to Indigo). He stayed with Eugenia in her house in Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
, in a room decorated with murals by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
.
Late in Life, Eugenia Errázuriz became a tertiary Franciscan (a lay nun), outfitted in a plain black habit designed by another minimalist, Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was a pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist thought, menswear-inspired fashions, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion. She was the founder of one of the most famous fashion brands, Chanel...
. A fitting environment for this wardrobe was never built. Although Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
was commissioned to design her beach house in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, she let the project lapse before she died in Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
in 1951, hit by a car while crossing a street at the age of 94. The house, to be known as Villa Eugenia, was eventually built in Japan.
Some portraits
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