Exhibition at the museum
Gustave Doré (1832–1883): Master of Imagination
From February 18th to May 11th, 2014
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Charles Perrault, Contes, illustré par Gustave Doré, gravé par Adolphe François Pannemaker (1822-1900), Paris, Hetzel, 1862, in-fol. "Au secours ! au secours ! voilà M. le marquis de Carabas qui se noie", frontispice pour Le Chat botté, 1862
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, réserve des Livres rares
© Bibliothèque Nationale de France / DR
Doré also applied his immense talent to different genres, from satire to history painting, delivering in turn, enormous canvases and more intimate paintings, flamboyant watercolours, virtuoso washes, incisive pen and ink drawings, engravings, fanciful illustrations, as well as Baroque, humorous, monumental and enigmatic sculptures.
As an illustrator, Doré set himself the challenge of the greatest texts (the Bible, Dante, Rabelais, Perrault, Cervantes, Milton, Shakespeare, Hugo, Balzac, Poe), which turned him into a real purveyor of European culture. He thus occupies a special place in contemporary collective imagination, from van Gogh to Terry Gilliam, not to mention his undoubted influence on comic books; there are many aspects that this first retrospective in thirty years will explore.
The exhibition is now over.
See the whole program