⚠️ The date displayed at the top of this event comes from the official source. The original description mentions other dates that may be outdated.
The Musée de l'Orangerie is organizing, in collaboration with the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, a monographic exhibition dedicated to the painter Henri Rousseau, bringing together major loans from international institutions. This co-production will open in October 2025 in Philadelphia, before being presented at the Musée de l'Orangerie from March 25 to July 20, 2026. On this occasion, the Musée de l'Orangerie will be the first to benefit from loans from the Barnes Foundation's collection, uniquely assembling a significant body of works by Henri Rousseau that passed through the hands of the dealer Paul Guillaume.
This collaboration is a natural fit in the history of both institutions: Paul Guillaume, whose collection forms the core of the Musée de l'Orangerie, acted as an intermediary for Albert Barnes in the purchase of his eighteen Rousseau paintings. He himself was a fervent collector of the artist, having owned up to fifty works by the painter, according to the documentary albums held in the museum's archives. Nine of these now belong to the Musée de l'Orangerie's collection, to which a recent acquisition of two small portraits has been added. The exhibition and its catalog will revisit this close collaboration between the Parisian dealer and the American collector, and more broadly, the network of collectors and dealers in which the painter was involved during his lifetime. Around fifty works will be presented on this occasion, drawn from the collections of these two institutions and key loans from European and American institutions, including La Bohémienne endormie (The Sleeping Gypsy), a masterpiece from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This exhibition revisits the career of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), his pictorial practice, and his professional ambitions. Having come to Paris from his native Mayenne, he decided at the age of 49 to retire from the octroi (tax office) to devote himself entirely to painting. The artist managed to diversify genres and techniques to establish himself on the Parisian art scene: compositions submitted to the Salon des Indépendants, responses to public commissions to decorate town halls in Île-de-France, portraits commissioned by his circle, landscapes intended for sale, and more intimate self-portraits. The exhibition aims to go beyond the legends surrounding the name of "Douanier Rousseau" to deeply study his artistic journey. Thematic sections will address the materiality of the works and place them in the context of the modern art market, in which Paul Guillaume and Albert Barnes played a major role. Bringing together the two most important collections of the artist's work with major pieces from international public collections offers an opportunity to study a broad corpus through the lens of materiality. In this regard, recent scientific analyses conducted by the Barnes Foundation shed light on the artist's pictorial practice. In parallel, the Orangerie's collection has been studied by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) to complement this set. Along the tour, a digital installation will highlight these scientific analyses, allowing the public to engage more concretely with the study of the works' materiality and revealing Rousseau's creative process.
Price: Rates coming soon.
Source: paris.fr — photo: Musée d’Orsay, dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt