Two new Ransons join the Musée de Pont-Aven

22/1/24 - Acquisitions - Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven - At last year’s TEFAF in Maastricht, we had of course noticed (see article) the fascinating pastel by Paul Ranson (ill. 1) offered by dealer Jean-François Heim, and it was therefore with great pleasure that we learned of its purchase by a French institution whose dynamic and relevant acquisition policy we regularly highlight. Naturally attached to the Nabis artists, the Musée de Pont-Aven was able to select this important work and bring together its usual partners: the Association des Amis du Musée, the CIC Ouest, the Fonds Régional d’Acquisition des Musées and other patrons such as the Société Archéologique du Finistère. This beautiful pastel well deserved such a convergence of good will, as it can be seen, following the museum’s lead, as a veritable compendium of Ranson’s art, all the more so as it is still poorly represented in the Pont-Aven collections and quite rare on the art market.

1. Paul Élie Ranson (1861-1909)
Study for Christ and Buddha, 1890
Pastel - 60 x 70 cm
Pont-Aven, Musée
Photo: Bernard Galeron

See the image in its page

A close friend of Georges Lacombe and Paul Sérusier, many of whose works are held by the Musée de Pont-Aven, Ranson was notably immortalized by Sérusier "in Nabic garb" in a painting from 1890 that entered the Musée d’Orsay in 2004 and bears witness to their shared taste for esotericism. "Le Temple", Ranson’s Montparnasse studio, was the venue for meetings of the group, whose interest in the occult and, more generally, in philosophico-religious questions, is well known. Ranson was also greatly impressed by The Yellow Christ painted in Pont-Aven by Gauguin in 1889, after discovering the sculpture in the Notre-Dame de Trémalo chapel, which Maurice Denis reinterpreted in The Offering at Calvary also painted the same year and acquired by the Société des Amis du Musée d’Orsay in 2014.

2. Paul Élie Ranson (1861-1909)
Study for Christ and…