This 1976 edition of the program Clés du regard offers an encounter of rare delicateness. Marcelle Cahn appears as an artist deeply inhabited by her work, playing “the great game of art” in the words of her close friend Michel Seuphor.

“I draw something, and away I fly”

— Marcelle Cahn

Adoring colors while insisting with a mischievous playfulness that gray, white, and black are indeed true colors, she dedicated her entire life to plastic and structural research. This total commitment was shared by the painter Gottfried Honegger, who undertook the cataloging of her works, and by the art historian Michel Seuphor.

“I wish I could live forever,” she remarks with childlike innocence near the end of the interview. Passing away in 1981, this major figure of abstraction navigated her century with vibrant intensity and maintained an incredibly sharp, modern perspective on the world—especially apparent when she speaks about the social status of women and its evolution.