Winter & Spring 2010

Some events of interest during Winter and Spring 2010 in Paris:

• Crime and Punishment, Museé d'Orsay, 1, rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris. From 15 March - 27 June 2010. This exhibition looks at a period of some two hundred years: from 1791, when Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau called for the abolition of the death penalty, to 30 September 1981, the date the bill was passed to abolish it in France. Throughout these years, literature created many criminal characters. The title of the exhibition is itself taken from a work by Dostoyevsky. In the press, particularly the illustrated daily newspapers, the powerful fantasy of violent crime was greatly increased through novels.

At the same time, the criminal theme came into the visual arts. In the work of the greatest painters, Goya, Géricault, Picasso and Magritte, images of crime or capital punishment resulted in the most striking works. The cinema too was not slow to assimilate the equivocal charms of extreme violence, transformed by its representation into something pleasurable, perhaps even into sensual pleasure.

It was at the end of the 19th century that a new theory appeared purporting to establish a scientific approach to the criminal mind. This tried to demonstrate that the character traits claimed to be found in all criminals, could also be found in their physiological features. Theories like these had a great influence on painting, sculpture and photography. Finally, the violence of the crime was answered by the violence of the punishment: how can we forget the ever-present themes of the gibbet, the garrotte, the guillotine and the electric chair?

Beyond crime, there is still the perpetual problem of Evil, and beyond social circumstances, metaphysical anxiety. Art brings a spectacular answer to these questions. The aesthetic of violence and the violence of the aesthetic - this exhibition aims to bring them together through music, literature and a wide range of images.

Please note that some of the pieces presented in the exhibition may be shocking to some visitors (particularly children).

• Robert Doisneau, Du métier à l'ouvre. Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2, impasse le Bouis, 74014 Paris. From 13 January - 25 April, 2010. email: contact@henricartierbresson.org, http://www.henricartierbresson.org, Téléphone: (01) 56 80 27 00. Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 13:00 to 18:30, on Saturday from 11:00 to 18:45. Late night opening on Wednesday until 20:30. Closed on Monday. A selection of original prints chosen from among the treasures of Doisneau's archives and from both public and private collections. Doisneau was a close friend of Cartier-Bresson. [Photo of Jacques Tati ... right.]

Rediscover the black and white negatives of popular Paris, stamped with humor, nostalgia and tenderness. The exhibition invites you to a fresh look at the work of Robert Doisneau (1912-94). One of the post-war favorites, Doisneau photographed the suburbs, the handicrafts and the city of Paris with an undreamt of scope and modernity. The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson offers a new reading of his work through a selection of around one hundred often-unknown antique prints. Recognised as one of the principal representatives of humanist photography, Doisneau is probably still the most well known French photographer in the world.

• Renoir in the 20th Century, National Galleries of the Grand Palais, Galeries nationales (Grand palais, Champs Elysées) 3, avenue du Général Eisenhower 75008 Paris. From September 9, 2009 to April 1, 2010. Téléphone : +01 44 13 17 17. (http://www.rmn.fr/Galeries) An exhibition organized by the Réunion des musées nationaux, the Musée d’Orsay and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. To be shown at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art from 14 February to 9 May 2010 then in the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 12 June to 5 September 2010.

“I’m starting to know how to paint. It has taken me over fifty years’ work to get this far and it’s not finished yet,” declared the artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) in 1913, at a time when a major exhibition of his work, including the large nudes painted at the turn of the twentieth century, was on show at the Bernheim Jeune gallery in Paris. It was a revelation. Guillaume Apollinaire was lavish in his praise for the man he considered “the greatest living painter”Like his contemporaries and friends Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet, Renoir was a reference for the new generation of artists. Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, as well as Pierre Bonnard or Maurice Denis expressed their admiration for the master and in particular for his “last manner”, referring to his work at the turn of the century. Great admirers of modern art such as Leo and Gertrude Stein, Albert Barnes, Louise and Walter Arensberg or again Paul Guillaume, collected Renoir alongside Cézanne, Picasso and Matisse.

This exhibition is dedicated to the exploration of Renoir's fertile years. After fighting for Impressionism, Renoir challenged the basic principles of the movement about 1888 and concentrated on drawing and studio work in an overt reference to the past. This period of crisis and research ended at the beginning of the 1890s, a decade which brought Renoir public and institutional recognition and commercial success. Without rejecting Impressionism, Renoir then invented a style that he claimed was classical and decorative. As a self-styled “figure painter”, Renoir concentrated on female nudes, portraits and studies from models, in the studio or in the open air, and experimented with new techniques. Some of these nudes, portraits and studies of models once belonged to Matisse or Picasso. Spread over some fifteen sections, they will occasionally be shown alongside works by Picasso, Matisse, Maillol or Bonnard, as a testimony to Renoir’s posterity. In this way, the exhibition is an invitation to review the last Renoir by seeing how these artists from the first half of the twentieth century looked at a nineteenth-century master, who happened to be their contemporary.

• Versailles photographed 1850-2010, château de Versailles, from January - 25 April 2010. Paying homage to the Château de Versailles and to photography, this exhibition provides an exceptional opportunity to see the works of famous photographers such as Edward Steichen, Robert Doisneau, Man Ray and Jacques-Henri Lartigue as well as Annie Leibowitz and Karl Lagerfeld whose art has left its mark on history. A selection of over a hundred images, taken since the invention of this technique up to our own day, will enable the public to pass in review the different ways that photographers have strivento represent the varied facets of this unique place and capture its beauty. [Right. Photo of Fred Astaire dancing at château de Versailles.]

www.mairie-rueilmalmaison.fr, téléphone: 01 41 39 06 96.

He is "raw art"! In the 1940s, Jean Dubuffet, relentless inventor of new techniques, dared to defy critics by inventing a radical form of expression. His life’s work was the result of a myriad of investigations and research, particularly evident in his engravings.

This exhibition, held until the 8th March in the Grognard atelier in Rueil-Malmaison, unveils his aesthetic evolution, starting with his first attempts in 1944 and beyond, with 110 lithographs and silkscreen prints and numerous documents about his research.

His main field of investigation remained engraving, shown here as combinations of impressions in Indian ink stuck onto paper and then transferred directly onto stone. They were then transferred onto canvas, producing paintings in which a multitude of textures can be found. Dubuffet then began his major work based on the “Phénomènes” (phenomena) of nature in which all the impressions (floors, walls, even a friend’s back) were raw material for his future lithographs. He then moved on to serigraphy and his famous series of little “Hourloupe” books before finally returning to lithography during the last years of his life.

A challenging and thorough voyage through the work of this master of the 20th century, in which his innovative character can be clearly seen.

• Charley Toorop, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, from 18 February to 9 May 2010, 11 avenue du Président Wilson, 75016 Paris, http://www.paris.fr, téléphone: (01) 53 67 40 00. Open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 to 18:00 . Closed on Monday and bank holidays. Late night opening on Thursday until 22:00.

Contemplate the work of Charley Toorop and of the artists who sprang from her movement through vibrant self-portraits and humorous or troubling female representations. Take advantage of the first retrospective in Paris devoted to Charley Toorop (1891-1955), a leading artist in Dutch modern art.

Marvel in this exhibition at her realist paintings and the works by many artists with whom she had strong artistic links: Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Gerrit Rietveld, Bart van der Leck, Joris Ivens.

Fundamentally realist and imbued with a great social awareness, in Charley Toorop’s painting, the human figure strongly imposes itself alongside surprisingly present still lifes.

Tuned into her time, she shows a great open-mindedness through the works she collected and in her support for avant-garde cinema. Her work also influenced the young magical realism generation.

• Turner et ses peintres, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, from 22 February to 24 May 2010, 3 avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris, http://www.rmn.fr, téléphone: (01) 44 13 17 17. Open every day except Tuesdays. Full price ticket @ 11 €.

Painter, water colorist and engraver, William Turner (1775-1851) is considered as one of England's grand masters of landscapes in the watercolor. In the course of the numerous trips, Turner marries his fascination for landscapes and ambience. Having grown up with the works of the ancient masters (Chick, La Lorraine, Rembrandt) and his contemporaries (Constable, Bonington), he gradually intoruces innovation in his painting. Nicknamed the " painter of light ", he works with the evocative power of color. With more than 80 pictures and graphic writings, this exhibition redraws the creation of a bright and unique world. Live the progression of this forerunner of the impressionism through his painting and his sources of inspiration.

• Frédéric Chopin, La Note Bleue, honoring the 200th anniversary of the Polish composer’s birth, through July 11, 2010, Musée de la Vie Romantique, 16 rue Chaptal, 9th, Métro: Saint-Georges. Téléphone: (01) 55 31 95 67. Open: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday. Admission: €7 . Website: vie-romantique.paris.fr An exhibit focused on the years Chopin spent in Paris, 1831–1849, and his relationship with novelist George Sand (née Aurore Dupin) with paintings, drawings and sculpture by contemporary artists, many of whom were their friends, including Delacroix, Corot, Courbet, Ingres and Ary Scheffer, whose home is now this charming small museum dedicated to Chopin and Sand.

• Yves Saint Laurent, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, Métro: Champs Elysées-Clemenceau, from March 11 - August 29, 2010, admission: €11. Téléphone: (01) 53 43 40 00. Website: petitpalais.paris.fr. A retrospective of the late couturier (1936–2008), with some 300 models spanning his 40-year career, from his start with Christian Dior to his retirement in 2002: tuxedos, safari jackets, filmy black gowns and the brilliant colors of collections inspired by travel—Russia, China, India, Spain, Morocco—and artists including Mondrian, Matisse, Picasso and Van Gogh.