Toute l'Histoire rediffusera le 18 septembre 2020 à 7 h 53 « Poudre, gloire et beauté » (The Powder & the Glory), documentaire américain d’Ann Carol Grossman et Arnie Reisman (2007). Le portrait croisé d’Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965), Juive née en Pologne, et d’Elizabeth Arden (1884-1966), chrétienne née au Canada, ayant immigré voici près d’un siècle aux Etats-Unis où elles ont fondé deux empires mondiaux de produits cosmétiques et de parfums, ainsi que l’industrie américaine de ce secteur qui réalise de nos jours un chiffre d’affaires de 150 milliards de dollars (beauté et santé). Le Jewish Museum Vienna proposa l'exposition Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty présentée en 2019, dans une version adaptée, au mahJ.
La toilette, naissance de l’intime
Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965)
Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965)
"Elisabeth Arden et Helena Rubinstein. Voici deux femmes formidablement modernes. Deux femmes qui ont, chacune, bâti un empire en miroir l’une de l’autre des années 20 jusqu’à leur mort dans les années 60. Toutes deux issues de milieu modeste, elles se sont affrontées pendant plus d’un demi-siècle pour un marché en pleine expansion, celui de la cosmétique. … Générales en chef d’une guerre menée à coups de mascaras, blushs pastels et rouges cerise, elles se sont surveillées et espionnées pendant plus de soixante ans, sans jamais croiser le fer frontalement, Galvanisées par leur rivalité, Elisabeth Arden et Helena Rubinstein ont créé, innové… et accompagné les femmes durant leur marche vers l’égalité, enracinant un univers féminin et universel Elles ont une victoire en commun : celle gagnée face à un business exclusivement masculin."
L’ascension professionnelle de deux self-made women, dotées d’un fort caractère, qui ont travaillé et habité dans le même quartier sans se rencontrer ni dialoguer, et dont la rivalité acharnée s’est développée en fructueuse émulation.
Des origines diverses
Chaya Rubinstein est née en 1872 - sa date de naissance varie selon les sources - dans une famille Juive orthodoxe et nombreuse vivant dans Kazimierz, quartier juif de Cracovie, en Pologne. Une partie de sa famille sera décimée par la Shoah (Holocaust).
Chaya Rubinstein arrive en Australie en 1896, et ouvre en 1902 à Melbourne la boutique Maison de beauté Valaze en vendant des crèmes pour les peaux sensibles abîmées par le soleil. Devenue Helena Rubinstein, elle fréquente scientifiques et médecins en Europe où elle s’établit en 1905. Epouse en 1908 le journaliste Edward William Titus avec lequel elle a deux fils, Roy (1909-1989) et Horace (1912-1958). Ouvre des salons de beauté dotés de cabines individuelles à Londres (1902), à Paris dans la rue Saint-Honoré (1909), puis aux Etats-Unis en 1914. Bâtit son empire sur plusieurs continents en se faisant appeler « Madame » par son personnel. Vend sa société en 1928 à Lehman Brothers à la veille du krach boursier (1929), puis la rachète en réalisant une plus-value qui fait d'elle l'une des femmes les plus riches des Etats-Unis. Se passionne pour l’avant-garde artistique – peinture, sculpture -, notamment l’art primitif qu’elle collectionne, et incitera nombre d’artistes à la portraiturer. Divorce en 1937 pour épouser en 1938 le prince Artchil Gourielli-Tchkonia. Fournit l’armée américaine en produits cosmétiques. S’intéresse au marché masculin des cosmétiques (gamme Gourielli en 1948). Se heurte à l’antisémitisme à New York. Sioniste, Helena Rubinstein soutient le jeune Etat juif refondé par des actions de philanthropes. Une photo la montre au côté de Ben Gourion, Premier ministre d’Israël.
Née en dans une famille pauvre d’Ontario (Canada) en 1884, Florence Nightingale Graham arrive à New York en 1907 et y débute dans un magasin de beauté. En 1910, elle prend le nom d’Elizabeth Arden et ouvre son premier salon caractérisé par sa porte d’entrée rouge sur la 5e avenue. En 1912, elle se forme aux techniques françaises de soins puis retourne à New York où elle rejoint un défilé de suffragettes sur la 5e avenue. Ouvre la première station de santé spa aux Etats-Unis. Veille à la formation continue et envoie ses équipe de vendeurs. Sa passion : l’équitation, l’élevage et les courses hippiques. Ce qui lui vaut la couverture de Time magazine en 1946. Elle débute un partenariat avec des designers de vêtements, dont Oscar de la Renta. Sa vie privée est marquée par deux mariages et deux divorces.
Des « icônes culturelles »
Au début du XXe siècle, des femmes fabriquaient des produits de beauté, mais pour une clientèle locale, communautaire, dans le cadre d’un marché de « niches ». Ainsi, Madam C.J. Walker’s cible les Afro-américaines.
En ce début du XXe siècle, les Etats-Unis accueillent chaque année, des centaines de milliers d’immigrés originaires de pays du vieux monde aux modes de vies, cultures, religions, etc. très différenciées. Sous l’impulsion de ces deux leaders de la cosmétique, le maquillage apparaît comme facteur d’intégration dans la société américaine. Et un élément d’une American way of life qui va servir de modèle, adopté ou refusé, adoré ou haï à nombre de consommateurs.
Helena Rubinstein et Elizabeth Arden luttent victorieusement, pendant des décennies, contre des préjugés stigmatisant le maquillage associé aux prostituées et artistes. Elles parviennent à convaincre les femmes que le maquillage est respectable, correct, naturel, indispensable, et doit s’intégrer dans un look global incluant la manucure, les soins des cheveux, les mouvements de gymnastique, les massages, etc.
Elles intègrent les découvertes scientifiques dans leur conception des produits et accordent une grande place à la recherche et à la démarche des scientifiques et médecins. Font évoluer le design et la composition des produits : crème (crème Valaze d’Helena Rubinstein, Eight Hour Cream d’Elizabeth Arden), shampooing, huiles de corps, lotions, savons, eye liners, rouges à lèvres – rouge à lèvre vif pour s’harmoniser avec la couleurs des uniformes des femmes servant dans l’Armée lors de la Seconde Guerre mondiale -, poudres à paupières, fonds de teint, etc. Modifient les caractéristiques du maquillage – premier mascara waterproof (1939) par Helena Rubinstein, faux-cils -. Multiplient les innovations et proposent de nouvelles gammes de produits. Lancent des parfums – Blue Grass d’Elizabeth Arden (1934) - devenus rapidement des must. Se fondent sur une formation spécifique des esthéticiennes, un marketing original – lâcher de 5 000 ballons/paniers renfermant échantillons et messages du haut d’un gratte-ciel new-yorkais pour la promotion du nouveau parfum Heaven Sent d'Helena Rubinstein -, une publicité et un packaging (conditionnement) savamment pensés. Génèrent des profits considérables grâce à l’écart important entre le prix de fabrication et celui de vente de leurs articles. Optent pour la vente de leurs produits dans les grands magasins et dans leurs salons de beauté offrant un décor contemporain, raffiné, décoré d’œuvres d’art. Façonnent la « femme moderne » selon l’air du temps en focalisant leur discours sur la beauté et la lutte contre le vieillissement, et pour une jeunesse quasi-éternelle. La convainquent de la nécessité de la gymnastique pour affiner la silhouette et renforcer la tonicité des muscles du visage, de l’hygiène et des soins du corps. Mettent au goût du jour le vocabulaire cosmétiques, notamment en reprenant le vocabulaire des suffragettes : « Chaque femme a droit à être belle » (Elizabeth Arden). Font miroiter une beauté accessible à toutes. Attirent une clientèle de célébrités : stars – Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich - et de reines : Elisabeth II. Recourent aux tops models (Twiggy Lawson) et actrices glamour (Catherine Zeta-Jones) comme égéries.
Elles se tournent aussi vers les médias les plus populaires et les plus récents : magazines féminins pour les encarts publicitaires et rédactionnels, cinéma – le septième art montre en gros plans les visages des acteurs -, Internet avec des sites communautaires, etc.
Quand Max Factor domine le maquillage hollywoodien, toutes deux s’infiltrent dans les interstices libres : Helena Rubinstein crée le maquillage charbonneux au crayon khôl de la première vamp du cinéma Theda Bara (1915) ; Elizabeth Arden collabore à un film promouvant son salon de beauté et sa philosophie.
Alors que dans les années 1960-1970, les jeunes femmes boudent les instituts de beauté, Elizabeth Arden recrute un talentueux directeur artistique, Pablo Manzoni, responsable du maquillage pour les attirer et les fidéliser en créant un maquillage stylisé fantaisiste (yeux en forme de plume de paon) conçu comme une œuvre d’art.
« Avec son packaging et mes produits, nous aurions pu régir le monde », avait déclaré Helena Rubinstein d’Elizabeth Arden. Ne craignant pas les nouveaux arrivants – Revlon (surnommé par l’une d’elles « Nail man » car les frères Charles et Joseph Revson ont débuté par un vernis à ongles en 1932) ou Estée Lauder qui fonde sa société en 1946 - sur ce marché au fort potentiel de croissance, ces chefs d’entreprises autoritaires se sont crues immortelles, sans préparer leur succession. Et après la disparition de leur fondatrice pionnière, les sociétés ont été rachetées par d’autres sociétés : L’Oréal rachète toute la marque Helena Rubinstein en 1988.
Ce documentaire souligne le rôle de ces pionnières dans l’acceptation par la société d’une femme jeune, indépendante et égale à l’homme. Mais il occulte combien ce culte de la beauté et de la jeunesse aux critères dictatoriaux pèsent sur des femmes astreintes à poursuivre un but inaccessible, même par la chirurgie esthétique.
Le 19 juillet 2015, dans la série Duels, France 5 diffusa Rubinstein/Arden, poudres de guerre.
Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power
Après le Jewish Museum de New York (31 octobre 2014-22 mars 2015), le Boca Raton Museum of Art a présenté l'exposition Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power (21 avril-12 juillet 2015).
Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power est la première exposition centrée sur cette collectrice d'oeuvres d'art et entrepreneur en produits cosmétiques. Elle explore les idées, innovations et influences de la légendaire Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965). "By the time of her death, Rubinstein had risen from humble origins in small-town Jewish Poland to become a global icon of female entrepreneurship and a leader in art, fashion, design, and philanthropy. As the head of a cosmetics empire that extended across four continents, she was, arguably, the first modern self-made woman magnate. Rubinstein was ahead of her time in her embrace of cultural and artistic diversity. She was not only an early patron of European and Latin American modern art, but also one of the earliest, leading collectors of African and Oceanic sculpture.
"The exhibition will explore how Madame (as she was universally known) helped break down the status quo of taste by blurring boundaries between commerce, art, fashion, beauty, and design. Through 200 objects – works of art, photographs, and ephemera – Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power reveals how Rubinstein’s unique style and pioneering approaches to business challenged conservative taste and heralded a modern notion of beauty, democratized and accessible to all.
The exhibition will reunite selections from Rubinstein’s famed art collection, dispersed at auction in 1966, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Elie Nadelman, Frida Kahlo, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Joan Miró, and Henri Matisse, among others, as well as thirty works from her peerless collection of African and Oceanic art. Other exhibition highlights include Rubinstein’s beloved miniature period rooms, jewelry, and clothing designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Paul Poiret. Rubinstein’s savvy for self-promotion will be seen in portraits of her made by the leading artists of her day, from Marie Laurencin to Andy Warhol. Also on display will be vintage advertisements, cosmetics products, and promotional films related to her beauty business.
Picasso, one of Rubinstein’s favorite artists, completed over thirty drawings of Madame in 1955. Twelve of these will be exhibited in the United States for the first time. The drawings capture a range of Rubinstein’s volatile moods, and depict many of her well-known attributes – the clothes, the jewelry, the chignon, the imperious manner and bearing.
Rubinstein amassed one of the most acclaimed collections of African and Oceanic art of the early 20th century. She treated the work as high art before it was common to do so, displaying the sculptures in her homes and beauty salons. She delighted in works from a broad range of cultures, and she especially loved the immense variety of forms and types within each tradition. Some of the highlights on display in the exhibition are: two exceptional Punu masks (Gabon); three highly stylized Bakota reliquary figures (Gabon); four celebrated Fang heads (Gabon); two impressive Bamana puppet headdresses (Mali); a distinctive Lake Sentani figure (New Guinea); and a Yoruba head (Nigeria) with an elaborate coiffure, thought to be one of Madame’s favorites.
Rubinstein had a lifelong love of miniature rooms and commissioned numerous doll-size dioramas, decorated in period styles. They ranged from a Spanish Baroque dining room to an artist’s garret in turn-of-the-century Montmartre. She installed her miniature rooms in a gallery at her flagship New York beauty salon at 715 Fifth Avenue for the education and delight of visitors and clients. Seven of these miniature rooms will be seen for the first time in the United States in fifty years.
In 1888, Rubinstein fled the prospect of an arranged marriage. By 1896 she had found her way from Krakow to Vienna to Australia, where she established her first business, Helena Rubinstein & Co., producing skin creams. The exhibition title refers to one of the first slogans Rubinstein used to promote her cosmetics. ‘Beauty is Power,’ announced the headline of an advertisement that first appeared in an Australian newspaper in 1904. The bold phrase is an early indication of Rubinstein’s distinctive blend of commercial savvy and inherent feminism.
At the turn of the century the use of cosmetics – associated with the painted faces of actresses and prostitutes – was widely frowned upon by the middle class. A model of independence, Rubinstein rejected this, producing and marketing the means for ordinary women to transform themselves. Her business challenged the myth of beauty and taste as inborn, or something to which only the wealthy were entitled. By encouraging women to define themselves as self-expressive individuals, Rubinstein contributed to their empowerment.
Inspired by the tradition of European literary salons, Rubinstein conceived of her beauty salons as intimate environments where progressive ideas were exchanged under the guidance of a sophisticated patroness. After her initial success in Australia, she opened beauty salons in the grandest districts of London and Paris. At the outbreak of World War I she moved to the United States, where she founded her first New York salon in 1915. Two revolutionary events had recently occurred there: the Armory Show of avant-garde European art in 1913 and a huge rally in 1911 of women suffragists. Tens of thousands of women had marched in the rally, with some wearing lip rouge as a badge of emancipation. It was Rubinstein’s genius to develop a brand that appealed equally to the cultured socialite and the average wage earner – a market created by the influx of young immigrant women into the workforce.
By the 1920s Rubinstein was a wealthy and influential businesswoman with salons worldwide, and was becoming known as an art collector. She had little interest in the conventional standards of connoisseurship. She bought what she liked and learned as she went from the many artists she met, and delighted in mingling Western and non-Western art together. Her eclectic tastes distinguished her from the conservative and elitist culture prevalent in fashionable circles.
By mid-century, Rubinstein maintained homes in London, Paris, New York, the south of France, and Greenwich, Connecticut, all functioning as ever more public platforms for the display of her collections. She was known for her independent, deliberate originality, collaborating with artists such as Salvador Dalí and interior designers such as David Hicks to create outlandish décors. Rubinstein’s fascination with different cultures and artistic approaches was reflected in her clothes, art, furniture, and jewelry. This kaleidoscopic variety of styles in the décor of her salons and homes served to level snobbish aesthetic taste and expand the notion of who and what could be considered beautiful.
Today the term “beauty salon” means a hairdresser or a day spa. But the Rubinstein salon was a place designed entirely for women, where a client could learn not only how to improve her looks, but also how to reconceive her standards of taste, to understand design, color, and art in order to express her own personality. Art and cosmetics embodied Rubinstein’s overarching dual enterprise: to establish a correspondence between modern art and personal beauty, both of which she felt should be interpreted individually and subjectively.
Now we take such subjectivity for granted, but the sense of individuality and independence Rubinstein fostered was new and profound in the early 20th century. She offered women the ideal of self-invention – a fundamental principle of modernity. One’s identity, she asserted, is a matter of choice.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Jewish Museum is publishing a 168-page catalogue by Mason Klein, distributed by Yale University Press. Mr. Klein concentrates on Helena Rubinstein as an art collector and patron as well as a titan of business. He explores her little-known role in integrating the notion of style--reflecting in her wide-ranging tastes--within the overarching culture and industry of beauty. In tracing how her brand name became associated with the woman herself, the book examines the various ways Rubinstein controlled and defined her remarkable image".
War Paint, musical
War Paint, est une comédie musicale en deux actes au livret signé par Doug Wright, la musique par Scott Frankel, et les lyrics par Michael Korie, d'après War Paint, livre de Lindy Woodhead (2004) et le documentaire "The Powder & the Glory" (2007) réalisé par Ann Carol Grossman et Arnie Reisman. Cette oeuvre se concentre sur la vie et la rivalité de deux femmes dirigeant d'entreprises au XXe siècle : Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, interprétées respectivement par Christine Ebersole et Patti LuPone. Elle a été présentée en 2016 à Chicago et en 2017 à Broadway.
Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty
Le Jewish Museum Vienna présente l'exposition Helena Rubinstein. Die Schönheitserfinderin (Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty).
"Helena Rubinstein was a pioneer in female entrepreneurship. It did not come easily to her. She was born in the 1870s in Kraków as the oldest of eight daughters and grew up in modest circumstances in an orthodox Jewish family."
"At the age of sixteen she turned her back on the confining, middle-class conditions of her Orthodox Jewish family, heading first to Vienna, then to Australia. After a stopover in Vienna, where she worked in her aunt’s fur store and collected the first ideas for her later career, she emigrated to Australia and worked initially as a children’s nanny. She began to sell creams imported from Poland and founded her first beauty salon. In order to develop her own products, she handed over the business to two of her sisters and left for Paris. In 1912 she invented the first system for identifying skin types. She founded beauty salons in Paris and London. In 1914, by now married, she emigrated with her two children and husband to the USA, where she continued to develop her own cosmetic line, which from the 1920s also bore her name. Her business grew rapidly".
"Without any help she founded a worldwide empire there, paving the way for many other, likewise predominantly Jewish businesswomen and businessmen in the new field of cosmetics. Her company soon included 100 branches in 14 countries with around 30,000 employees; she also became an important patron of the arts and sciences along the way. By the time of her death in 1965 it had 100 branches in fourteen countries and around 30,000 employees. Her private assets amounted to over 100 million US dollars. She was a patron of the arts and sciences, setting up a fund to support art students and financing the Helena Rubenstein Pavilion, a museum for modern art, in Tel Aviv. She established a faculty of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts and in 1953 founded the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, which continues to support women scientists today. The exhibition looks at her life, particularly the years in Vienna".
"Krakow—Vienna—Melbourne—London—Paris—New York—Tel Aviv are the essential stations of her life. The exhibition traces Rubinstein’s path as a migrant who conquered continents and broke conventions, and places her commitment to the self-determination of women in the spotlight. A focus on Vienna shows how skillfully she used her artistic network and business savvy on site. The fact that she succeeded more or less by herself seems to have almost amazed her when she looked back upon her life."
Cosmetics pioneer
"Passion, toughness, tenacity, bearing responsibility, leading, commanding, coupled with an “innate,” extraordinary taste and an exceptional talent for capturing the spirit of the times—these are the essential traits that made Helena Rubinstein into the first self-made woman in history."
"At a time when beauty care was not even a topic and make-up was regarded as defamatory and frowned upon, she prevailed with her idea that every woman could discover her individual beauty and should make the best out of it. Rubinstein was inspired by, indeed literally obsessed with the notion that women would gain self-confidence as a result. This was a disposition that appertained to her like few of her female contemporaries. She also asserted herself, nearly by the way, in the (business) world still dominated by men and created a completely innovative market that sustainably established itself internationally and still exists today. “Beauty is your special field, your actual home, Helena. A field that is still fallow. Learn to build it.” A maxim that she repeatedly said to herself."
"Headstrong and unconventional, she crafted her own image. She spent a fortune on artworks, buildings and their furnishings. For the architecture and design of her beauty salons, her institutes, as well as her houses and apartments, she employed the most interesting and innovative architects of her era. Urban modernity was Helena Rubinstein’s principle, coupled with an excessive penchant for opulence. She also did groundbreaking work in the design, packaging and advertisement of her beauty products. From the very beginning of her activity, she recognized the importance of this métier and also hired the most interesting creative heads here".
Waterproof mascara made in Vienna
"The expansion of Helena Rubinstein’s beauty salons also did not stop in Vienna. She founded a salon at Kohlmarkt 8 in 1932. Just a few years after the opening, Vienna already played an important role in Rubinstein’s enterprise: The race for the development of waterproof mascara that did not run in the rain or heat was won, first unnoticed, by the Viennese native Helene Winterstein-Kambersky. Confined to a wheelchair after suffering from lead poisoning, the singer patented the waterproof mascara, which she developed in many attempts, in 1935. Under the provision that she could market the formula herself with her own firm “La Bella Nussy,” she sold the license to Rubinstein. Waterproof mascara was introduced in a media-effective manner as a global novelty at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York with a water ballet. Back then, mascara was applied from aluminum tubes using paper sticks. Under the name Mascara-Matic, Rubinstein brought the mascara in a small tube with a brush, which is common up to today, onto the market in 1958".
"In 1939, one year after the so-called “Anschluss,” the Rubinstein salon in Vienna was closed. Helena Rubinstein also experienced anti-Semitism in the USA, among other occasions, when she wanted to rent an apartment in New York. They refused to rent it to her because she was Jewish. But they messed with the wrong woman. Helena Rubinstein subsequently bought the whole building on Park Avenue. In cities that tended to be regarded as WASP strongholds she ceded the terrain to her long-time competitor Elizabeth Arden. Up to today, the rivalry between the two cosmetic giants has served as material for literature, as well as the motif for musicals and plays."
“Quality is nice, but quantity makes a show.”
"After the Nazis seized power, Helena Rubinstein managed to bring nearly her entire family to the USA. However, one of her sisters, Regina Kolin, and her husband were killed in Auschwitz. Further strokes of fate were inevitable: the divorce of her beloved first husband Edward Titus, the death of her second husband, the considerably younger Georgian prince Archil Gourielli-Tchkonia, and shortly thereafter the death of her son Horace Titus in a car accident. The indefatigable beauty tycoon drew strength and incentive again and again from her work."
"Trips to Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Israel, where she planned a factory, roused her out of her sorrow. At this time, the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art of the Tel Aviv Museum, which she endowed and donated several works from her collection to, was opened. Moreover, she bequeathed her collection of historic miniature rooms with approx. 20,000 pieces of furniture and figurines in historic costumes to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art."
"With all the glamour and megalomania, the “Jewish Queen Victoria,” as Rubinstein was called by the New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons, remained in part the little girl from Kazimierz: with an unashamed Slavic accent, a language mix spattered with Yiddish, German and Polish, and the legendary brown paper bags in which she took hardboiled eggs, chicken legs, Krakowska sausage and the correspondingly greasy dollar notes for the taxi to her office—and scolded all of the employees there who did not shut off the light when they left a room."
"On April 1, 1965, Helena Rubinstein died at the age of 94. She was buried in her favorite Yves St. Laurent dress. Her wish to be laid in the grave with her most valuable, multi-rowed strings of black pearls was not fulfilled. In the end, Rubinstein always unflinchingly went her own way, which also meant that she fulfilled all of her dreams under her own steam, with self-earned money and according to her own, immodest predilections. She said it herself: “Quality is nice, but quantity makes a show.”
Michèle Fitoussi, Helena Rubinstein: La femme qui inventa la beauté. Grasset, 2010. 496 pages. ISBN : 978-2246755715
Le 19 juillet 2015, dans la série Duels, France 5 diffusa Rubinstein/Arden, poudres de guerre.
Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power
Après le Jewish Museum de New York (31 octobre 2014-22 mars 2015), le Boca Raton Museum of Art a présenté l'exposition Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power (21 avril-12 juillet 2015).
Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power est la première exposition centrée sur cette collectrice d'oeuvres d'art et entrepreneur en produits cosmétiques. Elle explore les idées, innovations et influences de la légendaire Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965). "By the time of her death, Rubinstein had risen from humble origins in small-town Jewish Poland to become a global icon of female entrepreneurship and a leader in art, fashion, design, and philanthropy. As the head of a cosmetics empire that extended across four continents, she was, arguably, the first modern self-made woman magnate. Rubinstein was ahead of her time in her embrace of cultural and artistic diversity. She was not only an early patron of European and Latin American modern art, but also one of the earliest, leading collectors of African and Oceanic sculpture.
"The exhibition will explore how Madame (as she was universally known) helped break down the status quo of taste by blurring boundaries between commerce, art, fashion, beauty, and design. Through 200 objects – works of art, photographs, and ephemera – Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power reveals how Rubinstein’s unique style and pioneering approaches to business challenged conservative taste and heralded a modern notion of beauty, democratized and accessible to all.
The exhibition will reunite selections from Rubinstein’s famed art collection, dispersed at auction in 1966, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Elie Nadelman, Frida Kahlo, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Joan Miró, and Henri Matisse, among others, as well as thirty works from her peerless collection of African and Oceanic art. Other exhibition highlights include Rubinstein’s beloved miniature period rooms, jewelry, and clothing designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Paul Poiret. Rubinstein’s savvy for self-promotion will be seen in portraits of her made by the leading artists of her day, from Marie Laurencin to Andy Warhol. Also on display will be vintage advertisements, cosmetics products, and promotional films related to her beauty business.
Picasso, one of Rubinstein’s favorite artists, completed over thirty drawings of Madame in 1955. Twelve of these will be exhibited in the United States for the first time. The drawings capture a range of Rubinstein’s volatile moods, and depict many of her well-known attributes – the clothes, the jewelry, the chignon, the imperious manner and bearing.
Rubinstein amassed one of the most acclaimed collections of African and Oceanic art of the early 20th century. She treated the work as high art before it was common to do so, displaying the sculptures in her homes and beauty salons. She delighted in works from a broad range of cultures, and she especially loved the immense variety of forms and types within each tradition. Some of the highlights on display in the exhibition are: two exceptional Punu masks (Gabon); three highly stylized Bakota reliquary figures (Gabon); four celebrated Fang heads (Gabon); two impressive Bamana puppet headdresses (Mali); a distinctive Lake Sentani figure (New Guinea); and a Yoruba head (Nigeria) with an elaborate coiffure, thought to be one of Madame’s favorites.
Rubinstein had a lifelong love of miniature rooms and commissioned numerous doll-size dioramas, decorated in period styles. They ranged from a Spanish Baroque dining room to an artist’s garret in turn-of-the-century Montmartre. She installed her miniature rooms in a gallery at her flagship New York beauty salon at 715 Fifth Avenue for the education and delight of visitors and clients. Seven of these miniature rooms will be seen for the first time in the United States in fifty years.
In 1888, Rubinstein fled the prospect of an arranged marriage. By 1896 she had found her way from Krakow to Vienna to Australia, where she established her first business, Helena Rubinstein & Co., producing skin creams. The exhibition title refers to one of the first slogans Rubinstein used to promote her cosmetics. ‘Beauty is Power,’ announced the headline of an advertisement that first appeared in an Australian newspaper in 1904. The bold phrase is an early indication of Rubinstein’s distinctive blend of commercial savvy and inherent feminism.
At the turn of the century the use of cosmetics – associated with the painted faces of actresses and prostitutes – was widely frowned upon by the middle class. A model of independence, Rubinstein rejected this, producing and marketing the means for ordinary women to transform themselves. Her business challenged the myth of beauty and taste as inborn, or something to which only the wealthy were entitled. By encouraging women to define themselves as self-expressive individuals, Rubinstein contributed to their empowerment.
Inspired by the tradition of European literary salons, Rubinstein conceived of her beauty salons as intimate environments where progressive ideas were exchanged under the guidance of a sophisticated patroness. After her initial success in Australia, she opened beauty salons in the grandest districts of London and Paris. At the outbreak of World War I she moved to the United States, where she founded her first New York salon in 1915. Two revolutionary events had recently occurred there: the Armory Show of avant-garde European art in 1913 and a huge rally in 1911 of women suffragists. Tens of thousands of women had marched in the rally, with some wearing lip rouge as a badge of emancipation. It was Rubinstein’s genius to develop a brand that appealed equally to the cultured socialite and the average wage earner – a market created by the influx of young immigrant women into the workforce.
By mid-century, Rubinstein maintained homes in London, Paris, New York, the south of France, and Greenwich, Connecticut, all functioning as ever more public platforms for the display of her collections. She was known for her independent, deliberate originality, collaborating with artists such as Salvador Dalí and interior designers such as David Hicks to create outlandish décors. Rubinstein’s fascination with different cultures and artistic approaches was reflected in her clothes, art, furniture, and jewelry. This kaleidoscopic variety of styles in the décor of her salons and homes served to level snobbish aesthetic taste and expand the notion of who and what could be considered beautiful.Today the term “beauty salon” means a hairdresser or a day spa. But the Rubinstein salon was a place designed entirely for women, where a client could learn not only how to improve her looks, but also how to reconceive her standards of taste, to understand design, color, and art in order to express her own personality. Art and cosmetics embodied Rubinstein’s overarching dual enterprise: to establish a correspondence between modern art and personal beauty, both of which she felt should be interpreted individually and subjectively.
Now we take such subjectivity for granted, but the sense of individuality and independence Rubinstein fostered was new and profound in the early 20th century. She offered women the ideal of self-invention – a fundamental principle of modernity. One’s identity, she asserted, is a matter of choice.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Jewish Museum is publishing a 168-page catalogue by Mason Klein, distributed by Yale University Press. Mr. Klein concentrates on Helena Rubinstein as an art collector and patron as well as a titan of business. He explores her little-known role in integrating the notion of style--reflecting in her wide-ranging tastes--within the overarching culture and industry of beauty. In tracing how her brand name became associated with the woman herself, the book examines the various ways Rubinstein controlled and defined her remarkable image".
War Paint, musical
Helena Rubinstein. Pioneer of Beauty
"Helena Rubinstein was a pioneer in female entrepreneurship. It did not come easily to her. She was born in the 1870s in Kraków as the oldest of eight daughters and grew up in modest circumstances in an orthodox Jewish family."
"At the age of sixteen she turned her back on the confining, middle-class conditions of her Orthodox Jewish family, heading first to Vienna, then to Australia. After a stopover in Vienna, where she worked in her aunt’s fur store and collected the first ideas for her later career, she emigrated to Australia and worked initially as a children’s nanny. She began to sell creams imported from Poland and founded her first beauty salon. In order to develop her own products, she handed over the business to two of her sisters and left for Paris. In 1912 she invented the first system for identifying skin types. She founded beauty salons in Paris and London. In 1914, by now married, she emigrated with her two children and husband to the USA, where she continued to develop her own cosmetic line, which from the 1920s also bore her name. Her business grew rapidly".
Cosmetics pioneer
"Passion, toughness, tenacity, bearing responsibility, leading, commanding, coupled with an “innate,” extraordinary taste and an exceptional talent for capturing the spirit of the times—these are the essential traits that made Helena Rubinstein into the first self-made woman in history."
Waterproof mascara made in Vienna
"The expansion of Helena Rubinstein’s beauty salons also did not stop in Vienna. She founded a salon at Kohlmarkt 8 in 1932. Just a few years after the opening, Vienna already played an important role in Rubinstein’s enterprise: The race for the development of waterproof mascara that did not run in the rain or heat was won, first unnoticed, by the Viennese native Helene Winterstein-Kambersky. Confined to a wheelchair after suffering from lead poisoning, the singer patented the waterproof mascara, which she developed in many attempts, in 1935. Under the provision that she could market the formula herself with her own firm “La Bella Nussy,” she sold the license to Rubinstein. Waterproof mascara was introduced in a media-effective manner as a global novelty at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York with a water ballet. Back then, mascara was applied from aluminum tubes using paper sticks. Under the name Mascara-Matic, Rubinstein brought the mascara in a small tube with a brush, which is common up to today, onto the market in 1958".
“Quality is nice, but quantity makes a show.”
"Trips to Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Israel, where she planned a factory, roused her out of her sorrow. At this time, the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art of the Tel Aviv Museum, which she endowed and donated several works from her collection to, was opened. Moreover, she bequeathed her collection of historic miniature rooms with approx. 20,000 pieces of furniture and figurines in historic costumes to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art."
"On April 1, 1965, Helena Rubinstein died at the age of 94. She was buried in her favorite Yves St. Laurent dress. Her wish to be laid in the grave with her most valuable, multi-rowed strings of black pearls was not fulfilled. In the end, Rubinstein always unflinchingly went her own way, which also meant that she fulfilled all of her dreams under her own steam, with self-earned money and according to her own, immodest predilections. She said it herself: “Quality is nice, but quantity makes a show.”
Du 18 octobre 2017 au 6 mai 2018
Au Jewish Museum Vienna
Jewish Museum Judenplatz, Judenplatz 8, 1010 Vienna,
Tel: +43 (1) 535 04 31
Du dimanche au jeudi de 10 h à 18 h. Vendredi de 10 h à 14 h.
Visuels :
Helena (Mitte) mit drei Ihrer Schwestern und ihrer Mutter in Krakau
ca. 1905
©0Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Mit dem Fotografen Cecil Beaton bei der Planung der privaten Kunstgalerie 1959
© Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Long Island, ca. 1953, Fotografie Bild (c) Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Puderdose mit Spiegel, 1930er Bild (c) Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Helena Rubinstein in Schiaparelli Kleid,
Fotografie von Cecil Beaton
© Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Kosmetikkoffer © Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Puder-Edition anlässlich der Krönung von Queen Elizabeth II
1953
©Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Werbung für Mascara Matic 1958
©Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Eröffnung der Fabrik in Tel Aviv 1962
©Archiv / Archives Helena Rubinstein, Paris
Poudre, gloire et beauté d’Ann Carol Grossman et Arnie Reisman
Etats-Unis, 2007, 86 minutes
Diffusions :
- 6 mars 2011 à 22 h 30, 7 mars 2011 à 02 h 30, 20 mars 2011 à 15 h
- 4 mars 2012 à 22 h 50
Sur Toute l'Histoire les 18 juillet 2019 à 12 h 40, 21 juillet 2019 à 01 h 15 et 22 juillet 2019 à 8 h 01, 18 septembre 2020 à 7 h 53
Sur Toute l'Histoire les 18 juillet 2019 à 12 h 40, 21 juillet 2019 à 01 h 15 et 22 juillet 2019 à 8 h 01, 18 septembre 2020 à 7 h 53
Visuels de haut en bas :
© Courtesy of Helena Rubinstein Foundation
© Courtesy of Elizabeth Arden Archives
Du 21 avril au 12 juillet 2015
Au Boca Raton Museum of Art
501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
In Mizner Park
T: 561.392.2500
Mardi, Mercredi et vendredi de 10 h à 17 h, Jeudi de 10 h à 20 h, samedi et dimanche de 12 h à 17 h
Au Boca Raton Museum of Art
501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
In Mizner Park
T: 561.392.2500
Mardi, Mercredi et vendredi de 10 h à 17 h, Jeudi de 10 h à 20 h, samedi et dimanche de 12 h à 17 h
Du 31 octobre 2014 au 22 mars 2015
Au Jewish Museum
1109 5th Ave at 92nd St. New York, NY 10128
T: 212.423.3200
Samedi, dimanche, lundi et mardi de 11 h à 17 h 45. Jeudi de 11 h à 20 h et vendredi de 11 h à 16 h.
Du 21 avril au 12 juillet 2015
Au Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL
501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
In Mizner Park
T: 561.392.2500
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Cet article a été publié pour la première fois le 6 mars 2011, puis les 3 mars 2012, 21 avril et 19 juillet 2015, 7 février et 6 mai 2018, 17 juillet 2019. Il a été modifié le 16 septembre 2020.
Au Jewish Museum
1109 5th Ave at 92nd St. New York, NY 10128
T: 212.423.3200
Samedi, dimanche, lundi et mardi de 11 h à 17 h 45. Jeudi de 11 h à 20 h et vendredi de 11 h à 16 h.
Du 21 avril au 12 juillet 2015
Au Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL
501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, FL 33432
In Mizner Park
T: 561.392.2500
A lire sur ce site concernant :
Affaire
al-Dura/IsraëlAviation/Mode/Sports
Chrétiens
Culture
Il ou elle a dit...
Judaïsme/Juifs
Monde arabe/Islam
Shoah (Holocaust)
Articles in English
Cet article a été publié pour la première fois le 6 mars 2011, puis les 3 mars 2012, 21 avril et 19 juillet 2015, 7 février et 6 mai 2018, 17 juillet 2019. Il a été modifié le 16 septembre 2020.
Très beau documentaire.
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