‘The Paris Winter: Anonymous Treasures from the de Civray Collection’, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010
Press Release
Since the opening of the exhibition, the Gallery and the de Civray Foundation have been shown sketchbooks belonging to the family of the artist Maud Heighton which suggest that she is the artist behind this remarkable collection of works. Maud Heighton studied in Paris between 1908 and 1910, and afterwards enjoyed a long career as a portraitist in Darlington and throughout the surrounding area. Her reputation as one of the UK’s forgotten female Post-Impressionists has been on the rise for some time, and with the addition of these works to her oeuvre it is set to soar. Heighton was successful in her own lifetime, though it is thought that she and her lifetime companion Sylvie Morel supported their comfortable manner of living largely due to the popularity of the novels written by the latter. These were melodramas of the Parisian underworld, written under the pen name ‘Yvette of Montmartre’. Her famous book, The Death of Cristophe Grimaud, was filmed in 1932 and starred Claude Rains and Janet Gaynor. The two women owned a large house in Darlington, a cottage in Reeth, a villa in the South of France and toured regularly on the continent. Their work is likely now to reach a much wider audience, and the trustees of the de Civray Foundation are delighted to have contributed to the enhancement of their reputations. By arrangement with their heirs, the works of both women, including Heighton’s sketchbooks and the manuscripts of Sylvie Morel, are available to all interested scholars who wish to consult them by appointment and subject to suitable references.