This summer, Les Franciscaines will cause a sensation from July 2 to September 25, 2022 with an unprecedented exhibition highlighting a key 20th century artist, Kees Van Dongen, and his special link with Deauville and Normandy.
For 50 years, the artist painted, drew and animated summers in Deauville through paintings, watercolours, drawings, engravings and sketches. More than a hundred works highlight the gaze of an artist who was a passionate witness of his time.
In 1913, Kees Van Dongen discovers Deauville. There he quickly encounters his favorite subjects: beach scenes, sea bathing, elegant women, horse racing, table games, crazy nights...
One meets him at the casino, greets him on the famous "boards", surrounded by friends whose portraits he painted like Suzy Solidor, Lucien or Sacha Guitry.
At the hippodrome, he paints on the cheeks and shoulders of women or on the parasols. On the beach, he and his son Jean-Marie paint on the sand.
A privileged witness, Kees Van Dongen never ceased, each summer, to position himself as an eternal observer of the society of his time.
As he told Paris-Match in 1959: "Deauville, it fits me like a glove. I find my clientele there and it looks like Holland because of the gray light and rains on the sea."
In his art history lectures, Fabrice Roy combines the past with the present, in a poetic and playful evocation of the French 19th century...
Les Franciscaines
145b avenue de la République
14800 Deauville
