Le musée de Cahors a doublé de volume !

About the reopening last May of the Henri-Martin Museum in Cahors.

As part of the Year of Denmark in Cahors (46), sixty works signed by the artist Queen Margrethe II of Denmark have been on display at the Henri-Martin Museum since 15 July and until 5 March 2023. But even if it is very interesting, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of her reign, to discover the various paintings and other artistic techniques of the widow of Henri de Laborde de Monpezat (1934-2018), the native of the country she married in 1967, In 1974, she acquired the Château de Cayx in Luzech, one of the most beautiful sites in the Lot valley, which inspired her work as much as Andersen's fairy tales. A visit to the Musée Cadurcien is also a must to appreciate the doubling of its exhibition space: the result of more than six years of work!

This was the emblematic project undertaken by the city of Cahors since 2016, when the Henri-Martin museum, named after this post-impressionist painter born in Toulouse (31) in 1860 and who died in Labastide-du-Vert (46) in 1943, closed its doors for renovation.  Early retirement of the previous director, Rachel Amalric, financing problems, Covid... there was no shortage of twists and turns, but this time it's done: since the beginning of May, the big crowd has been able to come for a weekend of grand reopening, and visitors have not stopped flocking. With its Musée de France designation, the establishment has benefited from 6.9 million euros of work, paid for by the State, the Occitanie region, the Lot department and the town of Cahors. It was worth the effort.

Created in 1833 to house the art and archaeology collections acquired by the city, the Henri-Martin Museum remains nestled in the former episcopal palace on rue Emile-Zola, but now offers the public vast volumes recreated to make a real art gallery of its elongated spaces, all made of contemporary materials and opening up beautiful perspectives on the Tassart Park. This new conception of the space offers visitors the opportunity to discover, in the best possible conditions and in permanent rotation, some 250 of the 11,000 works of art in this collection ranging from the Neolithic to the 21st century, including important archaeological pieces, numerous paintings by artists from the Quercy, a unique collection of caricatures and personal objects based on the figure of Léon Gambetta, a native of Cahors, as well as works of modern and contemporary art by, for example, Pierre Daura (1896-1976) and Edmée Larnaudie (1911-2001), and of course the largest public collection of paintings by Henri Martin.

Finally, the great decors of the painter, who always preserved the poetry of the symbolism that ran through his work at the end of the 19th century, such as La Fenaison, which was kept on its roll in the reserves of the Musée Cadurcien for 25 years because of its size, or the Monument aux morts de Cahors (1932), can be displayed in optimal conditions, one of the rare painted commemorative monuments, a pictorial work in the form of a triptych which caused so much ink to flow at the time of its commissioning by subscription that it was finally installed in 1970 in the museum because the population felt that a painting did not pay sufficient tribute to its dead, demanding, and obtaining after much debate, a stone monument.

With its length of more than seven metres and height of 3.76 metres, La Fenaison is a painting that is all the more singular because it is made in one piece: it is understandable that until now it has been very difficult to find a wall and picture rails that are large enough to exhibit this work of art, which was deposited with the city of Cahors by the Musée d'Orsay and has been the property of the State since 1910. Thanks to the revisited volumetry of the building, whose immaculate whiteness struck Françoise-Aline Blain, the journalist of Beaux-Arts Magazine, who devoted a page of the July and August issue to the visit of this new "gateway to the cultural landscape of Quercy", not only has the Fenaison found its place in the large gallery, but it has become one of the museum's masterpieces after its restoration in Marseille. For the painting is not only remarkable for its size and its pointillism with broad brushstrokes allowing the peaceful expression of an idealized world. It shows the beauty of the Lot landscapes which never ceased to inspire the artist, and shows the work in the fields in a typical valley in Labastide-du-Vert, some twenty kilometres from Cahors, where Henri Martin had set up his studio and lived until his death.

The visit of this brand new regional museum, whose renovation was undertaken by the Beaudouin-Husson-Martinez architectural firm, "favouring clear and uncluttered lines, concrete and Corten steel", begins for the journalist of Beaux Arts Magazine with the bishops' dining room, the only element in addition to the chapel dating from the historic episcopal palace. There, the Venus of Capdenac, a Neolithic treasure, is enthroned, surrounded by 800 terracotta sculptures created as part of a judicious participatory cultural and artistic project by the inhabitants of the area, during the artists' residency at the Cité des Tabacs of Chantal Perret and Laurent Maciet. An excellent way to allow everyone to feel concerned by the reopening of their museum than to exhibit there!

After the relics of Léon Gambetta, the local child, the painters of Quercy and the great decorations of Henri Martin, Françoise-Aline Blain discovered the "suspended room", dedicated to the nuggets of the collection, before finding herself propelled to Oceania, where the god Rongo is enthroned, and then reaching the Gallo-Roman and medieval archaeology rooms. The end of the tour is devoted to temporary exhibitions. "The idea is to give life to the collections, of which we only present a small part", explains Rachel Amalric, the director of the Henri Martin Museum. "Every three or four months, we will change a few works in the reference circuit to avoid a feeling of déjà vu. Our aim is to surprise the visitor and take him or her on a journey of discovery and encounter. Françoise-Aline Blain believes that she has already succeeded in this challenge, given the success of the first few months of opening.