From Fauvism to Surrealism. Masterpieces from the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
02.11.2022 - 05.22.2022
The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (MAM) and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao present a selection of nearly seventy masterpieces by significant artists that illustrates the history of the MAM collection while offering an overview of the avant-garde artistic movements born in Paris during the first decades of the twentieth century.
The MAM was built on the occasion of the historic Exposition Internationale (1937) to be a home to the collections of modern art of the city of Paris, which expanded rapidly in the following years thanks to major acquisitions of works by important artists of the Parisian art scene. However, MAM was only formalized as a museum in 1961. Patrons were an integral source of support for this project, especially Dr. Maurice Girardin, whose museum bequest of 1953 became the nucleus for the collection of modern masters, including the Fauves, Cubists, and representatives of the School of Paris.
Amedeo MODIGLIANI
Woman with Blue Eyes (Femme aux yeux bleus), circa 1918
Oil on canvas
81 x 54 cm
Inv. : AMVP 1681
© Paris Musées / Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Virtual Tour
Resources
The Exhibition
Fauvism and Cubism: Scandalously Modern
GALLERY 305
Louis Valtat
Mediterranean Landscape
(Paysage méditerranéen), ca. 1902
Oil on canvas
97 x 131 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Gift,
Mr. Ambroise Vollard, 1931
Rendezvous in Paris
GALLERY 306
Amedeo Modigliani
Woman with Blue Eyes (Femme aux yeux bleus), ca. 1918
Oil on canvas
81 x 54 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Legacy of Dr Maurice Girardin, 1953
© Paris Musées / Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Evolutions of Surrealism
GALLERY 307
Giorgio de Chirico
Hermetic Melancholy (Mélancolie hermétique), 1919
Oil on canvas
62 x 49.5 cm
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Gift,
Mrs Mathilde Amos, 1955
© Paris Musées / Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
© Giorgio De Chirico, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2022
In the Museum
Did you
know that...?
ART AND TECHNIQUE: MODERN LIFE
As part of the Didaktika project, the museum designs educational spaces and organizes activities that complement its exhibitions in an effort to provide tools and resources, both in the galleries and online, to facilitate the appreciation and understanding of the works on display.
AN EXCEPTIONAL COLLECTION: THE MUSÉE D’ART MODERNE DE PARIS (MAM)
On the occasion of the International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Modern Life held in 1937 in Paris, the City of Paris decided to create a museum dedicated to modern art with the goal of configuring and building up a collection devoted to the artistic movements of the twentieth century.
THE SPIRIT OF ELECTRICITY
The International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in 1937 focused on demonstrating the relationship between art and technique, among many other things. Following the instructions set forth by the electricity company, Compagnie parisienne de distribution d’électricité, Raoul Dufy was commissioned to paint the interior design for the Exhibition’s Pavilion of Light and Electricity.
PARIS: CITY OF LIGHT
Paris was named the City of Light (Ville lumière) at the beginning of the nineteenth century after becoming the first city in Europe to use gas lighting to illuminate its streets. Progress came along with technological advances, such as the cinema, electric light for outdoors and indoors, steel manufacturing, and new means of transportation.
MOVING IMAGES
The end of the nineteenth century saw the first motion pictures, due to Eadweard Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope, Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope, and later to the cinematograph of the Lumière brothers. The perception of reality changed.
ELECTRICITY
Electricity was the theme chosen by Man Ray for his series of photogravures entitled Electricity (1931). Did you know that you can make a photogram without a camera? All you need is to arrange some objects onto photosensitive paper and expose it to a light source to yield a negative image.
MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION
A symbol of modernity and the industrial revolution, the railway greatly facilitated traveling to the French capital. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the buzzing Parisian cultural life attracted artists from all over the world, who came by train, boat, and later by plane.
COLOR THEORIES
Goethe’s Theory of Colors, published in 1810, and Michel Eugène Chevreul’s On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colors, published in 1839, had a huge impact on many generations of artists. Did you notice that these color theories are presented in colorful round shapes?
