Andree Heuschling was born in 1900, and by her mid teens was the favoured model for the famed French Impressionist painter Jean-August Renoir. It was fellow painter Henri Matisse who discovered her and referred her to Renoir who was by then in the final chapter of his life and increasingly disabled with arthritis. Renoir’s adult son, Jean, a gifted ceramicist at the time, was taken with Heuschling after meeting her at his fathers studio and they married one year after his fathers death in 1919. Jean’s creative path soon turned to film directing and Heuschling starred in his first film under her screen name Catherine Hessling. That film was Nana and it was made in 1926. She starred in his next three films before they formally separated as a couple. The evolution of Jean Renoir as a director is notable in that it was initiated through his relationship with his late fathers muse, a sort of menage et trios in the Fruedian sense. Heuschling’s introduction to the arts and her transformation from live model to performing actress was deeply dependant on her relationship with both father and son. After Renoir replaced Heuschling with another actress for his fifth film Heuschling could not go on without having him exclusively as her anchor and emotional inspiration and so she retired from public life. They had a son to care for and so remained married until 1946. Their story from her perspective as an artist illustrates that just as father and son needed her as a muse she needed them for the same reason.
2018-06-04