Jeanne Malivel: from folk tale to furniture, one shared ambition to renew Breton arts. To mark the centenary of her death in 1926, Questembert’s media library announced a talk by publisher Stéphane Batigne on Tuesday 29 September 2026 at 6.30 pm, devoted to the artist and her tale Les Sept Frères (The Seven Brothers). Shared by DIZAGN on LinkedIn on 28 September, the event offers a starting point for considering her printmaking, textiles and furniture together.
Cover image: Les Sept Frères — © Éditions Stéphane Batigne.
A folk tale, a culture, a movement
The talk appeared in both Questembert’s events calendar and the publisher’s programme. The announcement gave a time of 6.30–7.30 pm; the LinkedIn post specified advance registration. The date has now passed: this article develops the documentation of the subject rather than reporting on the event.
The edition of Les Sept Frères, published by Stéphane Batigne in 2025 with an introduction by Olivier Levasseur, brings back into circulation a text rooted in the folk culture of Upper Brittany. The Forney Library exhibition booklet explains that the name Seiz Breur refers to the Gallo folk tale Jeanne Malivel’s grandmother used to tell her. A founder of the Ar Seiz Breur movement in 1923 alongside René-Yves and Suzanne Creston, she helped develop a modern Breton art.
From drawing to interiors
The four images in the original publication bring together the tale’s cover, a portrait of Jeanne Malivel in her studio, an embroidered cushion and the chairs from L’Osté. Seen together, they reveal the breadth of her work beyond the printmaking for which she is often known.
The Forney booklet places furniture at the heart of her commitment to the applied arts. It also recalls the L’Osté room, incorporated into the Brittany pavilion at the 1925 International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. Her attention to craftsmanship and everyday objects illuminates this ambition: to renew the living environment by bringing forms, ornament and use into dialogue.
For DIZAGN, these documents invite us to consider Breton furniture within a wider history of the decorative arts. The folk tale, printed image, textile and piece of furniture represent different scales of creation; studying them together enriches our understanding of a body of work cut short by the artist’s death in 1926.
Event details: talk by Stéphane Batigne, Questembert media library, Tuesday 29 September 2026, 6.30 pm. A past event announced to mark the centenary of Jeanne Malivel’s death.
Image credits, retained from the original publication: cover © Éditions Stéphane Batigne; portrait via Wikimedia Commons; embroidered cushion © Musée de Bretagne; L’Osté chairs © Musée départemental breton.
Sources: Original LinkedIn post, 28 September 2026 · Stéphane Batigne Éditeur events calendar · Forney Library, Jeanne Malivel exhibition booklet, 2023.