A new Émile Bernard for Pont-Aven

5/7/25 - Acquisition - Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven - As we noted recently when the Musée de Pont-Aven exercised a preemption right on one of his self-portraits (see the news item of 18/4/24), Émile Bernard, a central figure in the invention of Synthetism alongside Gauguin, is well represented in the museum’s collections. Yet none of the portraits or self-portraits previously held belonged to his Synthetist period. They dated at the earliest from his stay in Spain in 1896–1897, which marked the beginning of a new stylistic phase breaking away from the principles he had embraced in Pont-Aven – a return to order and a period of decline.

Thanks to the first-ever online crowdfunding campaign launched last spring by the museum and its Friends’ Association, this gap is now filled. A Portrait…