Marie-Laure peintre exhibition poster

Today the name of Marie-Laure de Noailles (1902–1970) is commonly associated with her outstanding role as a patron and furtherer of modern art. Together with her husband Charles, she financed artistic and architectural projects such as Luis Buñuel’s seminal movie L’Âge d’Or (1930) and the couple’s own summer residence Villa Noailles in the coastal town of Hyères, commissioned from Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1924. But Marie-Laure was not only the center of an exquisite circle of artists and intellectuals, she was a creator herself. She began to publish literary works in 1937 and additionally turned to painting in 1946, largely inspired by the Cubist and Surrealist movements.

Marie-Laure peintre is the title of an exhibition mounted at Villa Noailles in spring 2024. In the larger framework of celebrating the Villa’s 100th anniversary, it aimed at bringing back to light this aspect largely fallen into oblivion of this otherwise colorful figure. On display was a cross-section of works made between 1938 and 1969, ranging from scrapbooks to oil paintings to lithographies and etchings, not to forget her paintings on ceramic plates.

The poster advertising the exhibition was designed by Marc Armand. It shows a black-and-white photograph of Marie-Laure de Noailles amidst some of her paintings on a pale rose tone that creates a broad frame around it. The rose field in turn is framed by a thumb-wide border in green and blue tones that most likely hints at one of her artworks – without showing it. (If you want to see it, go visit the exhibition.)

Extracted from that are the colors Armand applies to the typography. The fonts in use are Tempel Softland as the top-level eye-catcher. It’s supported by the straightforward sans Enduro by Emmanuel Besse for information about the venue. Alex Slobzheninov’s Agrandir features for the credit of art dealer Johan Fleury de Witte and the logotype of Villa Noailles.

First made available in 2023, Tempel Softland is Reymund Schröder’s latest deduction from his Tempel Grotesk. While Tempel Grotesk already sported a blocky and black appeal, it still has the crispness of today’s digital type. In Tempel Softland, on the other hand, the edges are rounded off while the lettershapes themselves adapt to a condensed, squarish surface and remind one of bricks. In sum, Tempel Softland evokes 19th-century wood type as much as a certain retro-futurism. Both Tempel variants and also Enduro can be licensed from Production Type.