Marquet in Normandy

In the last decade, there was Pissarro (see article), Boudin (see article) and then Dufy (see article). With Marquet, the Musée André Malraux continues its series of exhibitions devoted to painters who had a special link with Le Havre and the Normandy coast. Seven stays in Normandy by the painter from Bordeaux, who moved to Paris early on, have been identified in the light of his correspondence, spanning almost the whole of his career, from 1903 to 1937. A maximum of fifteen paintings are associated with each of these stays, a body of work that is far from anecdotal, but which, unlike the artist’s work in Paris, the Mediterranean and Algeria, has never before been given a strictly dedicated exhibition. The exhibition at the MuMa brings together around forty of these canvases and twenty or so drawings. While some of the sheets along the way depict landscapes in Normandy, a large group of figure studies in black ink on the same wall is less strictly linked to them. Taken from the museum’s collections, and mainly from the donation made by Hélène Senn-Foulds in 2004 (see the news item of 8/12/04), these figure studies are the same silhouettes that enliven many of the Norman views on display elsewhere. Like the rest of the Marquet collection held by the museum, they are reproduced in full in the appendices to the exhibition catalogue.

1. Albert Marquet (1875-1947)
Rouen, the Transporter Bridge, 1912
India ink - 9.3 x 17.5 cm
Le Havre, MuMa
Photo: Le Havre, MuMa

See the image in its page

Mostly the result of donations - whose generous custodians, Charles-Auguste Marande and Olivier Senn, were among the Collectionneurs d’avant-garde [1] from Le Havre presented at the Musée du Luxembourg in 2012 (see article) - this monographic collection of fourteen paintings, twenty-three drawings and one print is not very representative of its Norman location. Only two paintings and one drawing are included. While Rouen, the Transporter Bridge in Indian ink (ill.…