Soutine and others at the mythical Museum of Modern Art in Céret
About the exhibition "The School of Paris (1900-1939). Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine & Cie, collections of the Centre Pompidou" at the Museum of Modern Art in Céret until 13 November.
The right formula makes for good fortune. And this is nothing new. When in 1912 the writer and art critic André Salmon (1881-1969) named the small town of Céret in the Pyrénées-Orientales the "Mecca of Cubism", he sealed its fate. A desirable fate, given the Museum of Modern Art, which has recently been enlarged to better display its collection. For Céret is now entering the history of art through the front door, even though the Catalan town was known until then as... the capital of the cherry! It must be said that two years earlier, the cubist painter Frank Burty Haviland (1886-1971), the composer Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921), and the sculptor Manolo (1872-1945) had decided to take up residence here. And to make friends with local artists. But they were not the least important, since they included the landscape painter Etienne Terrus (1857-1922), or one of the most famous sculptors of his time, Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). Of course, the small band was completed by a few wise collectors, such as Michel Aribaud (1877-1932).
The least we can say is that the mayonnaise took hold, that the working conditions became ideal for the artists, and that all this suddenly gave Céret and its dense and geometric architecture the appearance of a first-rate avant-garde artistic centre. The darling of the Parisian elite, who could do nothing wrong, was not likely to miss out on such an opportunity: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) arrived in Céret in 1911 with Georges Braque (1882-1973). The regulars of the Bateau-Lavoir were not long in joining him. So obviously, when the greatest representatives of contemporary art from the beginning of the 20th century, in the midst of Cubist research, are gathered in the same place, with Juan Gris, Auguste Herbin or Max Jacob, when their paintings immortalise the people of Céret, the landscapes dominated by the peak of Canigou, the typical high and narrow houses or the emblematic plane trees of Céret... the town is no longer likely to go unnoticed, however peaceful it may be, having been kept so long away from the avant-garde and the cultural bustle of the metropolises. Even the First World War did not plunge it back into oblivion. Its mythical reputation was established, and a veritable artistic and intellectual colony passed through Céret as soon as the war ended. It is enough to mention André Masson, Chaïm Soutine, Krémègne, Kisling, Picabia, Lhote, Cocteau, Marquet, Dufy, Edouard Pignon... to imagine the adventure that took place here.
When the young artist André Masson (1896-1987), traumatised by the Great War, stopped off in Collioure and then Céret in 1919, it was because he was on his way to Barcelona, from where he wanted to embark for India with the intention of leaving everything behind. But he found in the Catalan city a saving refuge, in addition to making friends with Chaïm Soutine and Odette Caballé, who eventually became his wife. In Céret, the artist whose colourful and rhythmic landscape paintings still bear witness to the influence of Cézanne, regained a taste for life and painting. Thanks to a donation from the Louise Leiris art gallery, a "Rue de Céret" signed by André Masson tells this beautiful story in the museum. Just as the unique set of twenty-nine "Bullfighting cups" by Picasso, given by their author in 1953 to Pierre Brune (1887-1956), tells of the Spanish master's infatuation with the bullfighting shows he attended in Céret.
If all these stories can still be told, it is because in 1948, Frank Burty Haviland and the painter Pierre Brune, who had settled in Céret for health reasons in 1916, decided to found a "museum of artists for artists" in this small town unlike any other. They were also collectors and philanthropists: the collection of paintings, sculptures and drawings acquired during their stays by all the artists present on the contemporary art market at the time was very quickly enriched and became exceptional. Friends also gave each other works. Thus Matisse went so far as to donate fourteen drawings to the future Museum of Modern Art in Céret. The municipality then gave up a room in the former Carmelite convent, and immediately the generosity of the artists spread even further. Pierre Brune was the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in Céret, from 1950 to 1956. And the constant influx of works of art required successive enlargements, until the most recent one was completed, giving the site an additional wing dedicated to exhibitions and designed by Pierre-Louis Faloci.
Exhibitions have always been on a large scale in Céret, so much so that in 1977 it was Miro himself who asked the museum to show his work there, going so far as to design the poster for the event and offer a large gouache. As Isabelle Manca-Kunert points out in her article for L'Oeil in July/August, "the close relationship between the museum and the painters has never been broken. If the town of Cérétane irrepressibly evokes the avant-gardes, it has also forged strong links with contemporary artists, and in particular with the members of Supports/Surfaces. They are logically well represented in the collections, such as Bioulès who, during his residency in Céret in 2005, executed a huge painting of Céret's famous plane trees, which now hangs in the museum's hall.
For the reopening of the museum last spring, the temporary exhibition was devoted to the Spanish contemporary sculptor and engraver Jaume Plensa, born in 1955 in Barcelona and represented by the art gallery Lelong & Co. This summer, the museum is changing its atmosphere, leaving contemporary sculpture behind to fill up with colour. From July 9 to November 13, the Céret Museum of Modern Art will be presenting the exhibition "L'Ecole de Paris (1900-1939). Chagall, Modigliani, Soutine & Cie, collections of the Centre Pompidou". This of course creates superb bridges between the paintings on loan from the Centre Pompidou and the works of art from Cérétane. For example, Chaïm Soutine alone painted more than two hundred pictures in Céret! A large part of which was bought by the famous Doctor Barnes, a rich and extravagant American collector who, thanks to the art dealer Paul Guillaume, was the first to discover the talent of this rather strange painter, a Russian emigrant who had spent a long time living in poverty among the bohemians of Montparnasse.
It is only a short step from there to thinking that Céret made Soutine's fortune. And it is true that in Céret Soutine painted astonishing works of art for sale, of a marked expressionism, even if the subjects of his paintings are the magnificent Catalan landscapes or characters from the Céretan world. This period of his life was therefore decisive for his artistic career, and not only for the financial windfall it brought him thanks to Dr Barnes. More than seventy works by Soutine, Modigliani, Chagall, Van Dongen, Pacsin or Kupka resurrect today in Céret the mythical spirit of Paris in the 1910s and 1920s.