Four exhibitions in Paris galleries

Alexandre Lafore Thursday 8 June 2023 All the versions of this article: English , français

8/6/23 - Art market - Paris - June promises to be a particularly busy month for the Paris art market, with a cascade of public sales (article to follow) and several exhibitions organised by galleries. The opening of a new one devoted entirely to old master drawings and 19th-century art is a major event in its own right, especially as it was initiated by Marianne Paunet, a well-known figure to readers of La Tribune de l’Art, a young art historian who worked for Michel Descours in Paris for many years. Together with Yasmina Sabrier, she is now offering a rigorous selection of Neapolitan drawings, accompanied by a rich catalogue that is also available online. We are delighted to see such a selection, especially as the two gallery owners have unearthed some real nuggets, such as a rather large drawing (ill. 1) by Massimo Stanzione preparing a painting for the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales in Madrid.

: 1. Massimo Stanzione (1585-1656)
The Seven Archangels
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, traces of black chalk - 19.5 x 35.8 cm
Sabrier & Paunet
Photo: Sabrier & Paunet; See the image in its page

The artist’s body of drawings is extraordinarily small, and sheets linked to other works are even rarer, although the Musée Sainte-Croix in Poitiers is fortunate enough to have preserved a project for the decoration of the dome of a ceiling. The exhibition then brings together other great names from the Parthenopean city, well known to the Parisian public thanks to the Petit Palais’ programme, such as Luca Giordano (see article) or Vincenzo Gemito (see article) and, of course, Ribera : presented outside the catalogue by Sabrier & Paunet, the latter will soon be presented by Annick Lemoine, the new director of the Paris museum (see the news item of 6/1/22), who announced this Ribera retrospective in an interview to our colleague at La Croix]] in the spotlight at the Petit Palais, which is planning a major retrospective for 2024!

: 2. Rubens Santoro (1859-1942)
Portrait of an Old Man, 1873
Black chalk, charcoal and white chalk - 45.5 x 34.3 cm
Sabrier & Paunet
Photo: Sabrier & Paunet; See the image in its page

How could one fail to think of Ribera’s naturalism when faced with one of the strongest drawings in the exhibition? This Portrait of an Old Man by Rubens Santoro (ill. 2) was drawn in Rome in 1873 when the artist was just fourteen! His first name was bound to prepare him for a brilliant career. As the catalogue notes make clear, the sheet is irresistibly reminiscent of a painting by Mariano Fortuny y Marsal in the Museo del Prado, where he was copying Ribera at the time, although it also brings to mind the Job painted by Léon Bonnat in 1880. Let us leave our readers to admire Corrado Giaquinto’s The Glory of Saint Joseph or Francesco de Mura’s The Trinity for just a few days: while a great many masterpieces from the Museo di Capodimonte have just moved to the Louvre for more than six months (article to come), it is with pleasure that we also come to find Naples rue Bonaparte for the time of a week thanks to these two young gallery owners.

: 3. Alexandre Falguière (1831-1900)
Bust of Auguste Rodin, 1899
Bronze with shaded brown patina - 47 x 45 x 30 cm
Cast by Hébrard, c. 1900
Galerie Nicolas Bourriaud
Photo: Galerie Nicolas Bourriaud; See the image in its page

You have to cross the Seine to discover Nicolas Bourriaud’s stimulating exhibition devoted to Rodin and his entourage: inaugurated today, like the display orchestrated by Sabrier & Paunet, it is accompanied by a rich catalogue also available online. Ranging from Carpeaux to Maillol, the selection includes works by masters, practitioners and friends of Rodin such as Alexandre Falguière, who in 1899 immortalised this "face in which there is both Jupiter and office manager"! In the end, it was Rodin who supervised the casting (ill. 3), which was entrusted to Hébrard, as Falguière died before the famous bust was completed. Other copies of this bust are also kept at the NY Carlsberg Glyptothek, the Musée Bonnat-Helleu and the Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’Histoire de l’art. Auguste Rodin had also portrayed his friend with a bust exhibited at the Salon of 1899 and finally acquired by the State in 1906: assigned to the Musée d’Orsay, it is on display at the Musée Rodin.

: 4. Claude Harris (1883-1961)
Portrait of Rodin Wearing a Beret, c. 1914
Silver print - 27.4 x 17.2 cm
Galerie Nicolas Bourriaud
Photo: Galerie Nicolas Bourriaud; See the image in its page

The sculptures on view at Nicolas Bourriaud until July are pleasantly accompanied by a set of photographs used mainly for the publication in 1917 of a work by Gustave Coquiot entitled Rodin at the Hôtel de Biron and Meudon. They show the master at work or wandering around the two buildings that now make up the Rodin Museum, which most visitors think of only as a Parisian town house, whereas it was in Meudon that Rodin lived, worked and still rests today. The photographs remained with the critic Gustave Coquiot (1865-1926) and his companion Mauricia de Thiers (1880-1964): of particular interest is the superb portrait of Rodin wearing a beret (ill. 4), which logically adorns the cover of the exhibition catalogue, which also features an astonishing marble by José Clara, a little-known Catalan sculptor who was influenced by Rodin, whom he discovered in 1900.

: 5. Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné (1888-1944)
Maternity, 1912
Oil on canvas - 100.5 x 75 cm
Galerie Le Minotaure
Photo: Galerie Le Minotaure; See the image in its page

: 6. Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné (1888-1944)
Cubist Self-Portrait, 1913
Oil on card - 49 x 35 cm
Galerie Le Minotaure
Photo: Galerie Le Minotaure; See the image in its page

Back to the Left Bank, where Le Minotaure gallery is organising a small Baranoff-Rossiné retrospective in its two rooms, covering the entire career of this Ukrainian-Russian artist who was born into a Jewish family and died in deportation in January 1944. Too little known to the general public, this avant-garde figure was one of the protagonists of the formidable "Paris pour école" exhibition, which was held in Paris in the summer of 2021 (see article) and then presented in Berlin and Céret. Since the 1950s, the Centre Pompidou has owned a small group of his works, acquired thanks to his heirs, and has recently added a fascinating Self-Portrait from 1910, acquired from the gallery Le Minotaure with the support of the Fonds du Patrimoine (see news item of 29/7/21). One would dream of seeing his 1912 Maternity (ill. 5) or his 1913 Cubist Self-Portrait (ill. 6) follow the same path, even if these fine paintings can at least be seen in Paris until the end of July thanks to this exhibition, accompanied by a precious little catalogue published by the gallery and In Fine, with a text by Jean-Claude Marcadé.

: 7. Sebir, born Antoinette Champetier de Ribes (1892-1972)
Cat and her Kittens, 1932
Black granite - 23 x 42.5 x 31 cm (detail)
Galerie Xavier Eeckhout
Photo: Galerie Xavier Eeckhout; See the image in its page

: 8. Josette Hébert-Coëffin (1906-1973)
Manufacture de Sèvres
Llama Head, 1943
Stoneware - 77 x 24 x 19.5 cm
Galerie Xavier Eeckhout
Photo: Galerie Xavier Eeckhout; See the image in its page

Let’s stay on the Left Bank, where dealer Xavier Eeckhout offers, as usual, an irresistible group of animal sculptures from the first half of the 20th century, with a novel angle: all the works are by female sculptors! While some of them have been the subject of exhibitions, like Jane Poupelet (see article) or monographs, such as the work Anne Doridou-Heim devoted to Anna Quinquaud in 2011, two years before her retrospective at La Piscine in Roubaix, it has to be said that there are many unknown names here. Today, only specialists know Sebir, the anagram-like pseudonym of Antoinette Champetier de Ribes, who studied with Aristide Maillol and Paul Landowski. Her Cat and her kittens (ill. 7), exhibited in 1932 at the Galerie Brandt during the Salon des Artistes Animaliers, evokes both Egyptian art and Emmanuel Frémiet’s Cat and her kitten. A sculptor and engraver from Normandy, Josette Hébert-Coëffin worked at both Sèvres and the Monnaie de Paris, where she immortalised both Jean Cocteau and General de Gaulle, but Xavier Eeckhout has chosen to present her pair of owls and two versions - one in bronze, the other (ill. 8) in stoneware - of her large Llama’s Head. Josette Hébert-Coëffin had a brilliant career in her day, but is now largely forgotten: the elegance of this haughty llama, as seductive in stoneware as in bronze, shows that it is time to take another look at this artist, whose Toucans from 1935, which had not been published since their creation, have been offered again at Sèvres in recent years...

Dessins napolitains du XVIIe au XIXe siècle, Sabrier & Paunet, from 8 to 13 June, 21 rue Bonaparte, 75 006 Paris
Catalogue online.

Rodin, maîtres, praticiens, amis, from 8 June to 20 July 2023, Galerie Nicolas Bourriaud, 205 rue du faubourg Saint Honoré, 75008 Paris
Website & online catalogue