“From Matisse to Chagall”, the Jean Couty Museum in Lyon honors the greatest masters of modern painting

2023-07-24 17:10:32

Picasso, Braque, Léger or Buffet, the exhibition presents until January 28, 2024 the works of some forty major painters of the 20th century who bear witness to the incredible artistic production of this period.

Until January 28, 2024, the Jean Couty museum in Lyon offers an unprecedented panorama From Matisse to Chagall. Through a hundred works, the exhibition presents the commitment of some forty artists who took part from 1951 to 1982 in the Salon of painters who witnessed their time.

This event was one of the biggest Parisian salons, we came across Chagall, Cocteau, Dufy, Léger, Matisse, Picasso, Rouault and even Van Dongen there.

France 3 Aura

A hundred works

The white walls of the Jean Couty museum in Lyon have taken on color. Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy or even Bernard Buffet but also Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall are the guests of the place. The exhibition retraces the adventure of the painters who witnessed their time. A hundred paintings, watercolors, pastels, drawings, posters and lithographs are highlighted.

Marc Chagall, “The painter in Paris”, 1978, oil on canvas 33 x 22 cm Collection Galerie Larock-Granoff, Art gallery since 1924 (ADGAP, Paris 2023)

This salon, founded in 1951 by the painter Isis Kischka, invited figurative artists to exhibit around a different theme, related to man and his environment. The first exhibition thus focuses on the work.

“Man, who is at the origin, must also be the goal of any work until proven otherwise, the world is built for him, around him and by him”, written at the time Isis Kischka. For about thirty years, sixty-two artists participated and produced canvases that were inspired by their visits to factories or workshops.

For this former deportee, it was a question of highlighting the human figure, a response according to him to Nazi barbarism. In a France in full reconstruction, the artist finds a social function. Famous painters ensure the prestige of the event. “It was a springboard for many artists because it was the biggest post-war Parisian salon and therefore the big names were the locomotives for the young generation of painters who arrived behind”, says Charles Couty, director of the Jean Couty museum.

The show was held every year in Paris, between 1951 and 1982, at the Museum of Modern Art and then at the Galliera Museum.

Posters that illustrated the Salon of painters who witnessed their time from 1951 to 1982. From left to right: Kees Van Dongen in 1964, Pablo Picasso in 1956 and Fernand Léger in 1951 (© ADAGP, Paris 2023 / Succession Picasso 2023)

The figurative above all

Little by little, a new generation of artists imposed itself, shaking up the fashion for abstraction. Thus, Bernard Buffet is noticed by the critics and gains notoriety thanks, in particular, to this Oil on canvas of 1965.

“Undressed women, seated women”, 1965 Bernard Buffet (ADGAP, Paris 2023)

Other very great painters, such as Brayer, Jansem, Gromaire, Utrillo, Villon or Van Dongen are also present throughout the visit.

Among the hundreds of artists exhibited until 1982, Lyonnais stand out. The Jean Couty museum exhibits the works of André Cottavoz, Jean Fusaro and of course that of Jean Couty, the father of the museum director. A regular at the show, he took part 23 times.

Through his paintings, he pays homage to his hometown. In 1975 his painting The metro construction site, wins the grand prize. On the very Shakespearean theme of As you would like, Couty replaces the spiers of cathedrals with monumental cranes. “He hasloved to rub shoulders with the workers, the people in the street, he was a great humanist and therefore for him it was very important to anchor in history everything that was built in Lyon”, further explains Charles Couty.

Jean Couty “The metro chanier”, 1972 Oil on canvas, 146 x 114 cm Grand Prize for painters who witnessed their time in 1975 (Jean Couty museum collection)

Exhibition “From Matisse to Chagall – The adventure of painters who witnessed their time” at Jean Couty Museum in Lyon.
Open du Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. until January 28, 2024
Entrée 6€