During these last two months, we had the pleasure to visit three magnificent exhibitions in Paris and make a visit to the Maeght Foundation of Vence. You will notice that they remain open to the public for a few more weeks.

Orsay Museum - Paris - The Talisman

From January 29, 2019 to June 2, 2019.
« Le Talisman de Paul Sérusier - Une prophétie de la couleur ».
The small outdoor study carried out by Paul Sérusier at Pont-Aven in October 1888, « under the direction of Gauguin », as indicated by the handwritten inscription on the back of the panel, was quickly elevated to the rank of icon. When the artist, back at the Julian Academy, presents Nabis (« prophets » in Hebrew) with this « synthetic » landscape of pure colours and simplified forms, they make it their « talisman ».
The latter joins the Maurice Denis collection, which helped to make it a founding work by giving the story of his creation in a text published in the journal L'Occident in 1903:
« How do you see this tree, said Gauguin in front of a corner of the Bois d'Amour: it is green. Put green, the most beautiful green of your palette; and this shade, rather blue? Don’t be afraid to paint it as blue as possible ».
Thus we were presented for the first time, in a paradoxical, unforgettable form, the fertile concept of the « flat surface covered with colors in a certain order assembled ».
The study of Sérusier was thus placed at the centre of a kind of myth of origin that fixes its interpretation: a « painting lesson » issued by Paul Gauguin inspiring the young painter the manifesto of an art that replaces a mimetic approach by the search for a « coloured equivalent ». It is with this presentation that posterity will reinterpret this painting as the announcement of a new conception of painting: pure, autonomous and abstract.
Don’t miss this beautiful exhibition!

G. Pompidou Center - Paris - Victor Vasarely

From February 6, 2019 to May 5, 2019.
The G. Pompidou Center honors the undisputed master of optical art, Victor Vasarely. Born in Hungary, he arrived in France in the 1930s where he initially worked in the advertising and graphic arts sector. From this experience, he keeps the taste for clean forms, a reduced color palette and a simple visual language, intended for the greatest number. It was in the 1950s that Vasarely began to develop his unique and recognizable style, exploiting the fallacies of the human vision in his illusionist canvases, rich in optical games. The exhibition « Vasarely, le partage des formes » (Vasarely, the sharing of forms) emphasizes the variety of the artist's prolific production by presenting canvases but also architectural projects, advertisements and multiples.
A very beautiful exhibition!

Orsay Museum - Paris - The black model

From March 26, 2019 to July 21, 2019.
By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, between art history and the history of ideas, the exhibition « Le modèle noir - De Géricault à Matisse » focuses on aesthetic issues, political, social and racial as well as on the imagination revealed by the representation of black figures in the visual arts, from the abolition of slavery in France (1794) to the present day. While offering a continuous perspective, it focuses on three key periods: the era of abolition (1794-1848), the period of New Painting until Matisse’s discovery of the Harlem Renaissance and the beginnings of the avant-garde of the twentieth century and the successive generations of post-war and contemporary artists.
The exhibition focuses on the question of the model, and therefore the dialogue between the artist who paints, sculpts, grave or photography and the model that poses. It explores in particular the way in which the representation of black subjects in the major works of Théodore Géricault, Charles Cordier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, as well as photographers Nadar and Carjat, evolves.
A must see !

Maeght Fondation - Vence - L'esprit d'une collection

From December 1, 2018 to June 16, 2019.
The exhibition « L'esprit d'une collection: les dons », at the Fondation Maeght de Vence, brings together an extraordinary collection of works of art gathered over the years by the donations of the couple Marguerite and Aimé Maeght enriched over the years by donations from artists, friends, family, collectors and lovers of the foundation. The exhibition offers the opportunity to rediscover the works of major 20th century artists such as Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Eduardo Chillida, Fernand Léger and Joan Miró, as works of more contemporary artists, all representative of the bonds of friendship and more than 50 years of history of the Maeght Foundation.