12 exhibitions not to be missed in 2023

He is the foremost artist in the history of modern sculpture. The work of Germaine Richier (1902-1959), supported by many themes (man, woman, animal, myth), is an extraordinary formal singularity. His use of ropes and winches, in particular, contributes to the oddity of his “insectimorph” figure. Others emerge from the muffled depths of the masses. But all of them are the result of “long-tormented material” (Mandiargues), echoing the sculptures of his friend Giacometti.

Paris “Neo-romantic. Forgotten Moments of Modern Art 1926-1972”, Marmottan Monet Museum, from 8 March to 18 June. Photo: Sir Francis Rose (1909-1979), Ensemble 1938, England & Co. Gallery © Sir Francis Rose Properties © England & Co.

The homonymous work by Patrick Mauriès, curator of the exhibition, has revealed to us a forgotten aspect of 20th century art, a “neo-romantic” current that defied dominant abstraction, claiming to be the old master and more humanistic or poetic. plastic art concept. This exhibition will allow us to appreciate the works of artists who are currently little known. Indeed, for the illustrious Christian Bérard, how many Pavel Tchelitchew, Francis Rose or Christopher Wood have (returned) found!

Paris “Life in painting, Corinne Deville (1930-2021)”, Sainte-Anne Hospital Museum of Art and History, until January 29. Photo: Corinne Deville, untitled, January 2010, personal collection © Yvon Meyer

Indeed, this is the first time that this artist’s work has become the subject of a monograph. Because, all his life, he never wanted to exhibit. He works for himself, finding in permanent creation a way out for the strangeness and pain of life. This prolific work, resembling childish creations and with very specific themes, is associated with his native Ardennes, with the figure of Rimbaud, or even with idealized Switzerland, lying somewhere between the Art of Naive and the Art of Brut.

Paris “Baya. Women in their garden. Works and archives, 1944-1998”, Institutes of the Arab world, to 26 March, then Marseille, Old Charitable Center, from 11 May to 24 September. Photo: Baya, story 1: The woman in her beautiful home, 1947. Aix-en-Provence, National overseas archives (France), © National overseas archives, Aix-en-Provence

Baya whose real name is Fatma Haddad (1931-1998) was born under a lucky star. An orphan early on, the young Algerian was raised by an adoptive “mother” who gave him schooling and an arts education. Passing through Algeria, gallery owner Aimé Maeght fell in love with her paintings and exhibited them at her Paris gallery in 1947. At the age of 16, Baya was thrust onto the artistic scene. Her naive and colorful style was a resounding success, in Paris but also in her country where she became one of the most prominent and influential artists.

Henri Matisse, The Veiled Lady, 1927, oil on canvas © 2022 Succession of H. Matisse/Copyright Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence

Hosted in conjunction with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Matisse Museum in Nice (which will be presented from June 23 to September 24), the exhibition focuses on the decades following Henri Matisse’s trip to Tahiti in 1930. During this period, the artist was in search of purity, simplifying lines – his lines, stylized his figures and won the accolade of the avant-garde magazine “Cahiers d’art”, which highlighted his wealth of production from between the two wars. Hanging brings together about thirty paintings, drawings and engravings.

Paris “Manet/Degas”, Musée d’Orsay, from 28 March to 23 July. Photo: Edgar Degas, Woman on the Café Terrace at Night in 1877, Gustave Caillebotte © Musée d’Orsay / Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

Sometimes accomplices, often rivals, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas, each in his own way, marked the history of the emergence of modern painting in 1860-1880. Masterpieces from both are confronted here, highlighting common themes (horse racing, shows, cafe scenes, etc.) and personalities with opposing characters. This unprecedented face-to-face between the two giants will then merge with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, between September 2023 and January 2024.

Paris “A beautiful escape. Feminine surrealism”, museum of Montmartre, from 31 March to 10 September. Photo: © Wikimedia Commons / Kathleen Tyler Conklin

When one thinks of surrealism, only a few female names come to mind. Women artists continue to play a major role in the movement, both in France and in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Mexico and the United States. The exhibition pays tribute to some fifty designers including Lee Miller, Valentine Hugo, Vera Pagava, Mary Reynolds, Meret Oppenheim, Dora Maar, Toyen, Claude Cahun, Unica Zürn, Dorothea Tanning…

Paris “Basquiat X Warhol: with four hands”, Fondation Louis Vuitton, from 5 April to 25 August. Photo: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, untitled, 1984-1985, private collection, courtesy of Jean-Michel Basquiat, licensed by Artestar, New York © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / licensed by ADAGP, Paris 2023

Jean-Michel Basquiat, figurehead of the New York underground in the 1980s, will be awarded the double award in the spring. The Louis Vuitton Foundation brought together an impressive collection of about a hundred paintings that he produced in collaboration with Andy Warhol in 1984 and 1985. At the same time, the Philharmonie de Paris presented the exhibition “Basquiat Soundtracks” (from April 6 to July 30), around the influence of music artists, from Beethoven to Madonna through Louis Armstrong and John Cage.

Paris “Sarah Bernhardt”, Petit Palais, from April 14 to August 27. Photo: Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt by Georges Clairin, 1876 © Musée Paris / Petit Palais

If it is true that each of us knows two deaths, namely the day he died and the moment when we even forget his name, then Sarah Bernhardt is immortal. It’s been a hundred years since the divine Sarah (1844-1923) left the stage and she is still a sacred monster worshiped in her time, and in particular Cocteau, Mucha, Sacha Guitry, Reynaldo Hahn and even Victor Hugo! Five hundred works, photographs, costumes and paintings trace back the life of a star.

Metz “Suzanne Valadoon. A world of her own”, Center Pompidou-Metz, from 15 April to 11 September. Photo: Valadon Suzanne’s Blue Room (1865-1938), Limoges, Museum of Fine Arts, housed in the Center Pompidou © Grand Palais / Jacqueline Hyde

“You are one of us,” Degas told him, looking at the picture. Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938), independent and courageous woman, artist after modeling, produced paintings in her image, bold, without complacency or concessions to her gender. The portraits he gives do not evoke sentimentality or modesty. Two hundred works put together to finally discover this often underestimated, even misunderstood talent, and shed new light on the female part, the other half of humanity, in painting.

Aix-en-Provence “Max Ernst”, Hôtel de Caumont, from 4 May to 8 October. Photo: Bird Monument, Max Ersnt (1891-1976), 1927, Cantini Museum, Marseille © Jean Bernard. All rights reserved 2022 Bridgeman Image © Adagp, Paris, 2022

Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a powerful phoenix artist, whose productions were constantly updated in form and technique: collage, frottage, decalcomania, scratching, used to explore themes related to nature and magic , the fantastic and the mysterious. The Hôtel de Caumont brings together eighty works from private and public collections to enable us to penetrate this strange, poetic, and almost always confusing universe, whose vision has invested Dadaism and Surrealism but has above all shaped “Maxernstian” art. .

Madrid “Picasso-El Greco”, Prado National Museum, from 13 June to 17 September. Photo: Pablo Picasso, Mme Canals (Benedetta Bianco), 1905, Picasso Museum, Barcelona © Succession Picasso, 2022 ProLitteris, Zurich

Two mighty artists, two innovators, side by side celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). How Malaguène was influenced, inspired, swayed by El Greco (1541-1614), his astonishing formal research, the power of his composition, the courage of his lineage… From The Burial of the Count of Orgaz to Guernica, a path of heights, full of perspective, certainly exciting.