Munch and France

The Munch and France exhibition was the first event devoted to an little-known aspect of the Norwegian artist : the influential relationships between the creations of Munch (1863-1944) and the French art of his time. Indeed, the numerous times the painter spent in Paris allowed him to get to know the great artistic and intellectual currents between 1855 and 1908. The discovery of impressionism and post-impressionism, his relationship with the universe of symbolism - literary as well as pictorial - and then his links with fauvism constitute the great landmarks of this route.
This exhibition relied on the confrontation of works by Munch (the larger part of which came from public or private Norwegian collections) with paintings from Monet, Caillebotte, Bernard, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Derain, Dufy, Marquet... An important selection of engravings, which also drew parallels between Munch and French engraving of his time, made it possible to consider again the role played by the artist's sojourns in Paris in 1896-97 in the elaboration of his style as an engraver important for Much in the apparition of expressionism in particular. Many little-known drawings were featured in the exhibition and the catalogue published for the first time the artist's diary, in French translation. These numerous elements allowed the public to view the painter who counts amongst the greatest personalities of the turn of the century in a different light.
with the help of the Elf Foundation