Born: 23 May 1898, United Kingdom
Died: 11 October 1985
Country most active: France
Also known as: Valentine Blanche Charlet, Christiane
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Born 1898 in the U.K. to Belgian parents, Blanche Charlet was an influential gallery owner in Brussels after World War I. Although successful enough to expand in the 1920s, the depression of the 1930s forced her to close her doors. Known as Agent Japonica and Ventriloquist, Charlet left Belgium for France in 1932. She was recruited by the SOE in 1941 and became a courier for the French resistance. Although captured and imprisoned by the occupying Nazi forces in 1942, she was among the more than 50 resistance fighters at Castres prison who staged a mass prison break in September 1943. She made it to the U.K. but returned in 1944. Settling in London after the war, she was made a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and returned to a career as an art collector.