Based on the life of the authors’ great-grandmother, Gabriële is an intriguing portrait of a remarkable woman, and of Paris during one of its most vibrant eras. Married to the artist and writer Francis Picabia and lover to the artist Marcel Duchamp, Gabriële Buffet was at the heart of the French capital’s intellectual and artistic life at the start of the 20th century. The Berest sisters’ aim is to rescue their ancestor from the oblivion into which she has fallen and to reveal her as her own woman, not merely one defined by the men who loved her. In doing this they have also summoned up, with exceptional liveliness and intensity, a vanished world of art, love and experiments.
