Mily Possoz (1888 - 1968)
NAME: La Chat Sur la Table
ENGLISH NAME: The Cat on the Table
MEDIUM: Drypoint and Roulette
PAPER: BFK Rives Paper
SIGNATURE: Signed by artist lower left.
LIMITED EDITION: 30 of 40.
Dry stamp from the publisher Marcel Guiot.
IMAGE is ACTUAL WORK
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Mily Possoz (Milly) (1888 – 1968) a Portuguese artist of Belgian origin, was born (Émilia Possoz) in Lisbon. While she was still young, Mily started attending the studios of watercolor artist Enrique Casanova and painter Emília dos Santos Braga. It was the Braga school that she will emerge a famous student. She then attended Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Montparnasse. She began to explore new techniques including avant-garde movements. In 1908, she was recalled home because of her parents.
In 1912 her father died and she joined the emerging modernist movement in Portugal. She rapidly became known when she was showing at the Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes in 1909. She continued to show there until 1916. During her visits to France, Mily became a member and only female member of the society Jeune Gravure Contemporaine which had annual shows. She exhibited at museums and galleries along with Tsuguharu Foujita, where she collaborated on some of the lithographs.
Mily was in Paris from 1927 to 1937, making visits to Portugal. During this period, most of her work was illustrations. She returned to Portugal after her mother’s death and lived in Sintra. In 1940 she was asked to design the Japan room and her work was inspired by Namban art. While exhibiting in Paris at Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne she won a Gold Medal for engraving and the same year had her work purchased by the Cleveland Museum of Art.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s she collaborated with the Sociedade Cooperativa de Gravadores Portugueses where she was a member until she died. She gave private lessons in painting and continued to illustrate books. In 1968 she passed away at her sister’s house in Lisbon. Her work is found outside of Lisbon at the National Gallery of London and the Cleveland Museum.