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Marquet in Normandy

Until September 24, the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art is presenting an exhibition dedicated to Albert Marquet (1875-1947) and an often overlooked part of his work produced during his stays in Normandy.

The “Marquet in Normandy” exhibition will present around 60 paintings and drawings from prestigious public and private collections, French and foreign, brought together for the first time. These works will dialogue at the MuMa with those of his friends, Dufy, Matisse, Friesz, Camoin, Valtat...

Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), La Passerelle du Havre, 1934, huile sur carton entoilé, 36,5 x 44,5 cm. Strasbourg - Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain. © Musées de Strasbourg
Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), La Passerelle du Havre, 1934, huile sur carton entoilé, 36,5 x 44,5 cm. Strasbourg - Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain. © Musées de Strasbourg

In line with the exhibitions it has devoted to artists who have stayed in Le Havre and Normandy (“Camille Pissarro in the ports” in 2013, “Raoul Dufy in Le Havre” in 2019), the MuMa wanted to focus on the Norman work of Albert Marquet, with the opportunity to question the question of the series or that of the point of view among these artists.

Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), Le Port de Honfleur, 1911, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm. Winterthur - Kunsthaus - don de Georg Reinhart -1933. © Hans Humm - Zürich
Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), Le Port de Honfleur, 1911, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm. Winterthur - Kunsthaus - don de Georg Reinhart -1933. © Hans Humm - Zürich

Albert Marquet came to Le Havre several times, painted there, exhibited there, thus fostering a closeness with collectors, some of whom bought works in large numbers. In 1906, he joined Raoul Dufy there. They go to Fécamp and Trouville, where the two young artists paint side by side, the windows of hotel rooms, multiplying the points of view on the basins, the sea like the pavoised streets of the city or walls plastered with posters.

advertisers. The two friends then make these places the privileged testing ground for their pictorial research and the use of color.

Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), Le Quai du Havre, 1934, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm. Liège - Musée des Beaux-Arts/La Boverie. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège/La Boverie
Albert MARQUET (1875-1947), Le Quai du Havre, 1934, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm. Liège - Musée des Beaux-Arts/La Boverie. © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège/La Boverie

In June 1911, he paints in Honfleur where he visits Félix Vallotton, then in the spring of 1912, Albert Marquet goes to Rouen, joined in July by Henri Matisse. His stay in Rouen is an invitation to paint and find new motifs that lead him to endless variations on the same subject.

All his life, Albert Marquet explored his own path, refusing to theorize his art. This discreet artist, insensitive to honors, said: “I can neither write nor speak, but only paint and draw. Look what I did. Where I managed to express myself or I failed, in any case, that you do not understand, by your fault or by mine,

I can not do any more "


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In his art history lectures, Fabrice Roy combines the past with the present, in a poetic and playful evocation of the French 19th century...




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