Masterpieces of the Ganges delta Collections from the Bangladesh museums26 december, 2007 - 31 March, 2008

Bangladesh possesses an immensely important cultural heritage, this arising from the fact that the eastern half of Bengal has been one of the cultural richest regions of the Indian world; a vision far from the catastrophic one that the western world often tends to favour. The region is associated with the art of the Pala and Sena dynasties (8th – 13th century).

Archaeological study has however revealed vestiges that are more ancient like the Mahasthan site which stands on what used to be Pundravardhana, and goes back to the Maurya and Sunga periods (3rd – 1st century BC). It has also revealed vestiges from the Gupta period (4th – 6th century). Pundravardhana-Mahasthan is, to this day, the oldest Indian city known to be in the east. But Bangladesh also harbours the oldest Buddhist monastery of the Indian world, Paharpur, which has now been listed on the UNESCO’s list of protected monuments.
Sculptures of a impressive dimension have been recently unearthed: a bronze Buddha measuring 1,3 metres in Paharpur in 1982, a Gupta Buddha (from Sarnath) sculpted on both sides at Mahasthan in 1992, a bronze Vajrasattva, 1,40 metres in height, at Mainamati in 1995, and finally an Avalokitesvara found on the same site of the same material and size.
These pieces have rarely been published and will be leaving Bangladesh for the first time for the exhibition. To this one must add the fact that Bangladesh has a Muslim majority as compared to the Indian west Bengal, and consequently the Islamic heritage is original and of special interest.


The objective of this exhibition is to show for the first time outside of Bangladesh, the unbelievably rich and complex heritage of this country. Benefiting from recent archaeological research helps us to show works from the Maurya period and go on until the 19th century. And thus we will retrace history whilst emphasising on a certain number of major sites. As a matter of fact, one of the characteristics of this heritage is that a lot of the pieces are well documented and enable us to situate the same in their precise historical and artistic context. The four great religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Islam that determine the history of Bangladesh will be duly represented.

The lenders are all government institutions:
- The Bangladesh National Museum at Dhaka, under the Ministry of Culture
- The site museums under the directorate of Archaeology and thus the Ministry of Culture.
- Mahasthan Archaeological Museum
- Mainamati Archaeological Museum
- Paharpur Archaeological Museum

The Varendra Research Museum at Rajshahi, under the University of Rajshahi and thus depending on the Ministry of National Education, it is the oldest museum in Bangladesh.

Masterpieces of Ganges delta

Collections from the Bangladesh museums
26 december, 2007 - 31 March, 2008

Masterpieces of Ganges delta
Collections from the Bangladesh museums
November 21st, 2007 - March 3rd, 2008

MUSEE NATIONAL DES ARTS ASIATIQUES GUIMET
www.museeguimet.fr
6, place d'Iéna
entrée du musée 19, avenue d'Iéna / entrée du Panthéon bouddhique
75116 PARIS

telephone number: 01 56 52 53 00
fax: 01 56 52 53 54
mail: josy.torlet@guimet.fr

Metro: Iéna
RER: Pont de l'Alma
Bus: 22, 30, 32, 63, 82

The Musée Guimet presents one of the leading collections of Asian art and civilisations in Europe, taking you on a journey through Korea, China and Japan...

Explore the museum’s major Chinese collection, which features some 20,000 objects reflecting seven thousand years of Asian art. Fascinating too, the Indian section relates, among other things, different chapters drawn from the Buddhist legend. Not far from the museum, visitors to the Panthéon Bouddhique can enjoy the peaceful natural surroundings of the Japanese garden and experience a tea ceremony, one of the most refined aspects of the Japanese lifestyle.

Impressionsit's pinnacle, the collection of Dr. Georges de Bellio at the Musée Marmottan in Paris

Born in Bucarest in 1828, Dr. de Bellio left Roumania for France in 1850, and bought his first Monet painting in 1874.


Two years later he was to meet Monet, and they became good friends. More paintings were commissioned over the years, and Dr. de Bellio expanded his collection to include to include works by Manet, Renoir and others, making himself a name as one of the first collectors of Impressionism. The collection grew so large in fact, that he was obliged to rent out a shop in order to put the works on show for his friends from the Café Riche!

Some of these paintings can now been seen at the Musée Marmottan, one of Paris' forgotten museums, not near the centre of town and no doubt overshadowed by Giverny, l'Orangerie and the Musée d'Orsay. However, it is well worth visiting if you like Impressionist paintings.

The collection of Dr. Georges de Bellio will be in display until 3rd February 2008.

Impressionist's pinnacle, the collection of Dr. Georges de Bellio at the Musée Marmottan in Paris
10th October 2007 - 3rd February 2008

Musée Marmottant Monnet
www.marmottan.com
2, rue Louis-Boilly
75016 Paris

Tél. : 01 44 96 50 33
Fax : 01 40 50 65 84
marmottan@marmottan.com

10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day
The registers close at 5.30 p.m.
Closed Mondays, 1st January, 1st May, 25th December

Entrance fees
Full price : 8€
Reduced price: 4,50€
(students under 25, amis du Louvre…)
Free for children under 8

Métro : Muette (Line 9 : Pont de Sèvres - Mairie de Montreuil)

RER : Boulainvilliers (line C)

Autobus :
22 Opéra (rue Gluck) - Porte de St-Cloud
32 Gare de l'Est - Port de Passy
52 République - Pont de St-Cloud
63
P.C. Petite Ceinture

Ferdinand Hodler until February 3rd, 2008 at Musée d'Orsay

Ferdinand Hodler was considered during his lifetime as a leading artist in the Modernist movement. Born in Berne in 1853, he lived in Geneva until his death in 1918, but this was a European career marked by both success and scandal. He was a member of the great Secessions and saw his work acclaimed in Vienna, Berlin and Munich. His triumph in Paris came in 1891 when his seminal painting Night (Berne, Kunstmuseum), was banned by the city of Geneva for reasons of obscenity. But at the same time, he was receiving major public commissions from Zürich, Geneva, Iena and Frankfurt. These produced many opportunities for the artist to indulge his taste for simplified, monumental or decorative paintings. Holdler is also an uncompromising portrait painter and unequalled landscape painter.


At the end of the nineteenth century Hodler was one of the leading Symbolist painters. His creative force, his taste for decoration and his simplified painting are reminiscent of Rodin and Puvis de Chavannes, the undisputed masters with whom he is often compared. However, Hodler remains relatively unknown in France, whereas in Switzerland he is considered their great painter, and in Germany and Austria he is regarded as one of the founders of modern art.
This exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay offers a real opportunity to rediscover Hodler, with eighty paintings, many on show in France for the first time, and about thirty paintings and photographs.


Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)
13 November 2007 - 3 February 2008

Musée d'Orsay
www.musee-orsay.fr
62, rue de Lille
75343 Paris Cedex 07

Information +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14

Musée d'Orsay entrance: 1, rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris.

9.30am to 6pm
9.30am to 9.45pm on Thursdays
Closed on mondays

Full rate: € 7.50
Concessions: € 5.50 €
Under 18s and members: free

Rodin and photography Until March 2nd, 2008 at Musée Rodin

Luck would have it that Rodin was born one year after photography. While he pursued his career as a sculptor, this new reproduction technique experienced what was probably its most fertile and inventive years. The artist was by no means oblivious to the practical and aesthetic appeal of this new medium, and the approximately 7,000 pictures he amassed between 1879 and 1917 illustrate both his own story and the history of photography.


Photography has opened for us the doors of his studio, which lay at the heart of his creation during the 1880s. This is where lumps of clay took shape, The Burghers of Calais were modelled naked before being clothed, and The Gates of Hell covered with a multitude of figures. Rodin started by hiring unknown photographers from the neighbourhood, Bodmer, Pannelier and Freuler who, unlike him, remained in the shadows. And then the clay figures were transformed into plaster, bronze and marble, and the studio became increasingly crowded. By the end of the 1890s, Rodin was an artist recognised by both his peers and the general public. Eugène Druet, an amateur photographer, followed by Jacques-Ernest Bulloz, became his official photographers, each one in his own manner following Rodin’s precise instructions.

Your photographs will make people understand my Balzac

A.Rodin to E. Steichen

This evolution in the role and place of photography in the sculpted work of Rodin is an accurate reflection of what happened in the early 20th century: photography was viewed under a different angle so that it gradually attained the status of an artwork.

This large-scale exhibition, devoted to the photographic collection of the Rodin Museum, will present 200 photographs for the first time since the Salon des Pictorialistes held in 1993. A catalogue, jointly published by the Rodin Museum and Gallimard, will accompany the exhibition.

RODIN AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Exhibition from 14th November 2007 to 2nd March 2008

Musée Rodin
www.musee-rodin.fr
79, rue de Varenne
75007 Paris

Metro Varenne (line 13)

Opening hours: 9.30am-4.45pm every day except Mondays.
Closed 25th December and 1st January
Admission price: Adults 6 euros, concession 4 euros.
Combined exhibition + permanent collection ticket + garden: 9€, concession: 6€

Christian Lacroix, fashion stories Until April 20, 2008 at the Musée de la Mode et du Textile

For over a year, Christian Lacroix has been immersed in the collections of costumes and accessories from the museum. The result is an atypical exhibition in which the designer delivers his vison of fashion, subjective and creative ...

The Musée de la Mode et du Textile prompt fashion designer Christian Lacroix to become the curator and fashion historian he never was, when as student of art history at the Ecole du Louvre he decided to commit himself in a creative work now globally recognized and appreciated. For over a year, Christian Lacroix has been immersed in the collections of costumes and accessories from the museum. The result is an atypical exhibition in which the designer delivers his vison of fashion, subjective and creative... The models he selected from a century rich heritage will meet for a few months haute-couture creations of one of the greatest names in French fashion.


The exhibition is a unique adventure, a story of fashion from the eighteenth century to the present day freely and subjectively told by Christian Lacroix himself.
More than 400 clothes, carefully chosen according to themes or techniques the fashion designer loves and that have marked the history of fashion, are set against his own creations, creating a game of echoes and crossing between the present and the past.

Christian Lacroix, fashion stories
Until April 20, 2008

Musée de la Mode et du Textile
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/
109-111, Rue de Rivoli
75001 Paris Plan d'accès
Tel : 01 44 55 57 50

Hours and dates :
from 08/11/07 to 06/04/08 from 10am to 06pm : Sunday, Saturday
from 08/11/07 to 06/04/08 from 11am to 06pm : Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday
from 08/11/07 to 06/04/08 from 11am to 09pm : Thursday

Entrance fee:
Full rate: 8.00 €
Reduced rate : 6.50 €

The Roaring Twenties (1919-1929) at the Galliéra museum until February 28th, 2008

The fashion style of the "roaring twenties" reflects a decade hungry for movement, speed and frenzy. The 170 models, 200 accessories and 50 perfumes and cosmetics mainly from the Galliera funds and presented in this exhibition are a token of this period.

Between 1919 and 1929, the spirit of the time is to empower women and their bodies. The smart (Elegante, Parisian chic) woman of the 20's knows the ecstasy of driving a car, the freedom to cut their hair, make-up, smoking in public, appearing in "tomboy" and having a modern lifestyle.

The scenarized scenes designed for the exhibition are an invitation to share twenty-four hours in the life of this "Parisian chic."

During the day, sobriety is a must: simplicity of the cut is associated with cosy materials, embroidery made way for discrete ribbons, binding and lace. The modern woman is experiencing the flexibility and ease of clothing designed from the male athlete cloakroom or sportswear - sweater, knitwear, pajamas ...
In the evening, the purity of the lines of the clothes combined with the preciousness of decorative effects reveals, with dazzling lighting effects, the lamés, metal fringed lace, satins and beaded muslin, semi-precious stones, feathers and strass.

The Callot sisters, Chanel, Heim, Jenny, Patou, Poiret, Talbot, Worth are among the big names present in the exhibition, along with Lanvin, with the evocation of the Pavillon de l'Elegance (International Exhibition of Decorative Arts 1925 in Paris).
The journey ends on the major streams which have gone through the fashion of 1920's: modernity with Vionnet, Lelong, Art Deco with Dunand, painting with Delaunay, Gontcharova… and influences which, from Japan to Russia, through Africa, inspired prints and embroideries typical of those crazy years.

Illustration sounds, photographs and newsreels are evocations in the context of the time.

Commissioner
Sophie Grossiord, Chief Curator at the museum Galliera
Scenography
Antoine Fontaine and Marc Jeanclos

The Roaring Twenties (1919-1929)
until February 28th, 2008
Musée Galliera
www.galliera.paris.fr
10, avenue Pierre 1 of Serbia
75116 Paris
Tel.: 01 56 52 86 00 / fax: 01 47 23 38 37

Metro: Iéna or Alma Marceau
Open from 10 am to 18 pm
Every day except Monday (14 am to 18 pm on holidays)

Entrance fee
Full fare: 7 € / reduced price: 5, 50 €
young's fare(14-26 years): 3, 50 €
Free: less than 14 years

ANIMAL at the Dapper museum until march 30th, 2008

In Africa, animals take the lead role in the myths, legends, tales, proverbs and riddles that are perpetuated and kept alive by the spoken arts. They are often depicted in the plastic arts, especially sculpture, but these visible representations are subtended by a complex and powerful symbolism. This can be seen at work in initiation ceremonies, propitiatory rituals, medical practices and acts of divination and witchcraft.

Sometimes combined with human features, the animal form provides a means of representing spirits that are theoretically invisible. Sculpture “gives flesh” to the presence that is being invoked. Depending on the highly diverse cultural and aesthetic canons to which we owe the exceptional wealth of African arts, this figuration may either be clearly naturalistic or more allusive, if not metaphorical. Composite, hybrid forms are frequent, sometimes stylised to the point of abstraction. No supernatural metamorphosis can be operated, however, unless complex rituals are performed, in which the sacrifice of a real animal plays a vital role.

In some societies, the members of a clan, who are all descended from a common ancestor, are forbidden to eat the meat of the animal whose name they bear and which is mentioned in their motto. This special relationship, cursorily dismissed as “totemic”, derives from the primordial role attributed to an emblematic animal – the role of apical ancestor of the lineage in mythical times and its subsequent perpetuator and protector. A fragment of this animal’s body, such as the tail, skin, claws, fangs or feathers, may be worn as an amulet or part of a costume, providing a tangible symbol of this link.

Drawing from the collections of major European museums and private citizens, as well as from its own holdings, the Musée Dapper has brought together some one hundred and forty works, including masks, statuettes, insignia and jewellery, in order to show how animals permeate the arts of sub-Saharan Africa in different forms, codes, symbols and metaphors.

Monkey
A wild animal pest, the monkey is regarded as a brush spirit and belongs to the pantheon of the Baule people of Côte d’Ivoire.

Anthropomorphic representations show it in the posture of receiving offerings. It puts in a more discreet appearance in the Kuyu culture (Congo) where, like other animals, it can be seen atop polychrome sculptures.

Crocodile
Lord of the aquatic world, the crocodile is particularly venerated by the Akan in the lagoon region of Côte d’Ivoire. Their famous goldsmiths often depict it in their gold filigree jewellery.


ANIMAL
From October 11th 2007 to march 30th 2008

Musée Dapper
www.dapper.com.fr
35 bis, rue Paul Valéry
75116 Paris

Tel. : 01 45 00 91 75
E-mail : dapper@dapper.com.fr

Open from 11am to 7pm
Closed on Tuesdays
Admission : 6 €
Metro
Line 2 - Victor Hugo metro station
Line 6 - Charles de Gaulle - Étoile or Kléber metro station
Line 1 - Argentine metro station

RER
Line A - Charles de Gaulle-Étoile station

Bus
Line 52 - Paul Valéry bus stop
Line 82 - Victor Hugo bus stop

Car parks
Avenue Foch : entrance at 8 avenue Foch
Place Victor Hugo : entrance at 80 avenue Victor Hugo

STARDUST OR THE LAST FRONTIER at MAC/VAL until January 13th, 2008

On October 4 2007, Mac/Val inaugurated its new exhibition at Vitry-sur-Seine :
"Stardust or the Last Frontier"
about representations of the sky and the stars, self-image and images of the beyond. "Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, was launched at Baikonur on October 4, 1957" noted the two curators with a grin.

Mac/Val's fall exhibition "Stardust or the Last Frontier" (until January 13 2008) proposes a journey into space that, through the imagination of some forty-odd artists, becomes a "mirror of the world". Alexia Fabre (chief curator of the museum) and Frank Lamy (director of temporary exhibitions) have selected approximately sixty works that perfectly complement the permanent collection display, entitled Being Present in the World. Our gaze is lifted to the beyond, so as to better refocus on ourselves.

Frank Lamy adds: "Skies, planets, stars, the Milky Way, constellations, satellites, supernovas, the Big Bang, black holes, space-time, rockets, and astronauts are all protagonists of this saga. It's an attempt to describe the Beyond, and thus also the human condition. It's about fiction, masks, creating an image, but also about power, conquest, colonialism, and identity..."
The exhibition includes never-before-seen works by young French artists represented in Mac/Val's permanent collection - including Jacques Monory, Serge Guillou, Bernard Moninot, and Melik Ohanian - alongside works from other artistic scenes, including Great Britain, Canada, and Switzerland (see preliminary list below).

" Stardust or the last frontier " emphasizes the universality of its theme, allowing the viewer to question the idea of proper scale and to reflect on the self and its relationship to the world. Although the topic is a serious one, the two curators, in keeping with the museum's mission, have deliberately emphasized different levels of interpretation, ranging from a light-hearted view of formal representation to fundamental metaphysical questioning. They offer the audience a personal experience, a type of personal projection, and paid close attention to the educational materials of the exhibition.

List of artists in the exhibition:
Guy Allott, Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil, Nicolas Baier, Gilles Barbier, Neal Beggs, Davide Bertocchi, Pascal Broccolichi, Etienne Chambaud, Claude Closky, Tony Cragg, Julien Discrit, Erró, Sylvie Fleury, Claude Gassian, Trevor Gould, Serge Guillou, Andreas Gursky, Vincent Lamouroux, Roberto Martinez, Philippe Mayaux, Paul McDevitt, Jorge Méndez Blake, Aleksandra Mir, Joachim Mogarra, Bernard Moninot, Jacques Monory, Olivier Mosset, Nicolas Moulin, Melik Ohanian, Roman Ondák, Bruno Peinado, Didier Rittener, Gwen Rouvillois, Thomas Ruff, Stéphane Sautour, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Bridget Smith, Wolfgang Tillmans, James Turrell, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, Mark Wallinger, Jane & Louise Wilson, Jordan Wolfson.


Mac/val
www.macval.fr
Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne
Place de la Libération
94404 Vitry-sur-Seine cedex

contact
e-mail: contactmusee@cg94.fr
tel: +33 (0)1 43 91 64 20
fax: +33 (0)1 43 91 64 30

ADMISSION FEES:
Full price: 4 euros
Concessions: 2 euros - groups (min. 10 people)
Cine-concert: 6 euros - concessions: 4 euros
Cinema: 4 euros - concessions: 2 euros

by car:
From the Porte de Choisy, follow the Nationale 305 road to the Carrefour de la Libération in Vitry-sur-Seine. Sculpture by Jean Dubuffet.

by metro:
Line 7 (direction Mairie d’Ivry) to Porte de Choisy then take bus n° 183 (direction Orly Terminal Sud) to Moulin de Saquet-Pelletan.

By train:
RER C to Vitry-sur-Seine station then take bus n° 180 (direction Villejuif-Louis Aragon) to Moulin de Saquet-Pelletan.

COURBET to January 28 2008 @ le Grand Palais

This exhibition presents 120 paintings, about 30 graphic works and some 60 photographs in an area of 1500 square metres. Since 1977 (when the last major monograph exhibition on Courbet was held in Paris) extensive research in France and abroad has enabled us to re-evaluate Courbet's (1819-1857) oeuvre in the context of the art of 1840-1860. The exhibition will be an opportunity for a new generation to discover the work of a painter who was a major figure in the history of nineteenth-century art in all its breadth and diversity.

This retrospective brings out the complexity of Courbet’s work and its sometimes paradoxical links with the representation of reality and the pictorial tradition. It reassesses his place in his time and analyses his links with other art forms, particularly photography. The exhibition therefore gives the keys to understanding a many-facetted oeuvre, the manifesto of realism in 1848-1855 and its consequences for art history. This approach provokes thought about the nature of Courbet's realism and the role of Romanticism in his work. It sheds light on an influence which was decisive for the adepts of “New Painting” in the 1860s and the beginnings of Impressionism.

The exhibition is divided into eight sections:
1. Inventing Courbet: Youthful Self Portraits
For the first time, this section brings together an important set of self portraits painted or drawn between 1840 and 1855. In a romantic vein, the artists put himself at the centre of his work giving his self portraits an importance that reminds us of Rembrandt.

2. From Private Life to History. Throughout his life Courbet remained true to his family origins and his native land. They inspired his first great canvases which asserted his talent as an artist.

3. The Manifestoes. This section focuses on the Burial at Ornans and The Artist's Studio, exceptionally transferred from the Musee d'Orsay to the Grand Palais; it brings out the coherence of Courbet's artistic ambitions in the early 1850s and the mise en scène of those ambitions by the painter himself.

4. Landscapes. The landscape section is arranged around two fine series on the grottoes along the Loue River and the waves on the Normandy coast, including the most important versions. This theme offers a pertinent examination of parallels with contemporary photography – especially the work of Le Gray, Le Secq and Giroux.

5. The Modern Temptation. During the 1860s, Courbet, then at the peak of his fame, was a key reference for the rising generation of New Painting and early Impressionism; the work of these young painters stimulated Courbet in return, particularly in his portraits and modern subjects.

6. The Nude: Flouting Tradition. The female nude was a major stake for Courbet who painted his first nudes in the 1840s. His presentation of Bathers in 1853 (Musée Fabre, Montpellier) gave him a chance to assert his faithfulness to tradition and his desire for a realist renewal. Around The Origin of the World (1866, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), this section brings together all his major canvases in this genre from Sleeping Bacchante (1844-45, UNICEF foundation, Cologne) to Woman with a Parrot (1866, The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

7. The Artist as a Melancholic Hunter. Courbet’s works on a hunting theme have often been overlooked by art historians. And yet they are an important part of history painting, highlighted in the exhibition by a display of large pictures – The Death of the Stag (1866, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Besançon), Stags Fighting (1861, Musée Départemental Gustave Courbet, Ornans) – surrounded by all the key works on this theme.

8. Personal Experience of History: Courbet and the Commune. Courbet’s relations with politics were complex. He took action for the first time during the siege of Paris and the Commune, when he was the president of the Artists’ Federation. He paid dearly for his political commitment, particularly for his part in pulling down the Vendôme column. Thrown into prison, in poor health and forced into exile in Switzerland from 1873, Courbet as an artist was thereafter a survivor. Except for his self-portrait at Sainte Pélagie (1861, Musée Départemental Gustave Courbet, Ornans), he did not deal directly with events he had witnessed or taken part in. The gloomy series of still lifes painted between 1871 and 1873 was an outlet for his distress.

The exhibition closes with an unusual presentation of the three paintings of Trout from the Loue River, which are metaphors for the artist and his desperate fate.

An exhibition organised by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux and the Musée d’Orsay with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Communauté d’agglomération de Montpellier / Musée Fabre.

It will be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 27 February to 18 May 2008 and at the Musée Fabre from 13 June to 28 September 2008.

Media partners : Le Figaro, France Inter, Le Point and Paris Première.

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais
www.rmn.fr/galeriesnationalesdugrandpalais/
3, avenue du Général-Eisenhower
75008 Paris
Tél.: +33 (0)1 44 13 17 17 (voice mail)
Fax: +33 (0)1 44 13 17 19
e-Mail: information.gngp@rmn.fr

Dates : From October 13 2007 to January 28 2008
Everyday except Tuesdays

Address: Clemenceau entrance

Access : M° Franklin-Roosevelt or Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau

Admission : 10€
Concession: 8€ - (13-25 years, large families, job seekers)
Free for children under 13

Hours : Every day from 10am to 10pm, except on Thursdays to 8pm
(tickets office closes
45mins before closing time).

Audioguide : French, Englih and Japanese: 5€

Fragonard, a century of pleasure until January 13th, 2008 at the Jacquemart-André Museum

Following the bicentenary of the death of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), the Jacquemart-André Museum pays homage to one of the greatest painters in the history of art, highlighting a greatly neglected aspect of the artist’s work: illustrations.

From 3 October 2007 to 13 January 2008, the Jacquemart-André Museum will be presenting a unique collection of around one hundred works by the painter Fragonard from all over the world. The exhibition paints the picture of an artist who was far more cultured than one could imagine and who, beyond the atmosphere of an age of which he is the most brilliant interpreter, knew how to illustrate and translate the thoughts and tastes of his time: alternating between pleasure and artistic refinement.

On the occasion of the bicentenary of the death of Fragonard (the artist died in Paris in 1806 at the age of 74), it was important that Paris, the city where Fragonard spent his entire career, should pay homage to one of the greatest painters of the eighteenth century. In France, this anniversary celebration was not marked by any major events and no major exhibition of the artist’s work has been put on for twenty years.

Through around one hundred works taken from around the world, the exhibition highlights the work of one of the greatest painters of the eighteenth century who is an eminent representative of the tastes and the culture of his time. The Jacquemart-André Museum, which has a wealth of works from this period, was designed in an entirely natural manner so as to provide an appropriate setting to host an exhibition which proposes to revisit the artist’s work and show it in a completely new light. Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, an art historian and author of two books on Fragonard, is the curator of the exhibition.


Photo credits:
Les débuts du Modèle - Musée Jacquemart-André Institut de France © Culturespaces - C. Recoura - JL Tamisier
Jeune Fille délivrant un oiseau de sa cage © Photo Jean-Jacques L'Héritier
La Petite Sultane - Ball State University Museum of Art_E. Arthur Ball Collection_Gift of the Ball Brothers Foundation 1995 © Trustees of Ball State University. Photo Steven J. Talley

Jacquemart-André Museum
www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com
158, bd Haussmann
75008 Paris

Tel. : +33 1 45 62 11 59
Fax : +33 1 45 62 16 36

contact

Access:
RER Charles de Gaulle - Etoile
Metro Miromesnil or Saint Philippe du Roule
Bus : 22, 28, 43, 52, 54, 80, 83, 84, 93

Coach parking:
Coaches can park outside the museum for free, on the boulevard Haussmann.

Situation:
The Jacquemart-André Museum is situated in the 8th arrondissement in Paris, close to the place Charles de Gaulle-Etoile and the Champs-Elysées.

Opening hours:
Open daily throughout the year, without exception, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Jacquemart-André Café is open daily from 11.45 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.