Fine Arts Week Paris 2019 – Highlights

THE FAIR REVIVING THE FINE ARTS

Last year, 18 museums participated in the first, highly successful Fine Arts Week, which was devoted to sculpture. This year’s off-site event, held in partnership with various art institutions, will offer a series of special visits to major exhibitions and little-known places.

Luca Giordano, Diana ed Endimione, 1675-1680, 203 x 246 cm, huile sur toile, Verona, Museo diCastelvecchio, Archivio fotografico ©Umberto Tomba, Verona

Like Drawing Week, which over the past 20 years has become an important forum for the art world, Fine Arts Week strives to create synergy between museums, the art market, researchers, art lovers and collectors.

“FINE ARTS PARIS is not just a fair,” says Bertrand Gautier, one of the organizers of Fine Arts Week. “It is also a multidisciplinary get-together where ideas can circulate. We want to open the fair to what’s happening in museums, show the world what a great cultural showcase Paris is and make connections between various art world players.”

Visits to private collections

During Fine Arts Week, visitors will have a chance to discover private collections like the one of Émile Hermès (1871-1951) , devoted to horses and travel, which is still displayed as it was in his time and contains everything from travel kits to systems canes, goat carts, saddles and stirrups, Amazon slippers and a horse tricycle. Among the paintings on the walls are works by Alfred de Dreux, Eugène Lami and Carle Vernet. The collection is housed in what was once the office of the third president of Hermès on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. For the 2019 edition of FINE ARTS PARIS, this hidden collection, a veritable treasure chest, will be open exclusively to visitors to the fair and will feature works on the theme of the Belle Époque.

At the Musée Jacquemart-André, visitors will discover the Alana Collection, one of the most important private collections of Italian Renaissance art, with nearly 75 works by the greatest masters of the period.

The Musée Rodin will show the personal collection of Auguste Rodin, with works by painters dear to the sculptor, among them Falguière, Renoir and Van Gogh.

Another exceptional collector, Félix Fénéon, was also an anarchist, art critic, editor, publisher and gallery director. This major player in the early-20th -century art world will be the subject of an exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie : “Félix Fénéon: Modern Times, from Seurat to Matisse.”

Georges Seurat Le Dormeur ©Musée del’orangerie

Unique experiences

During Fine Arts Week, the home and studio of Chana Orloff , designed by architect Auguste Perret, will offer visitors a chance to not only see but also touch the sculptures. Participants will be invited to express their reactions. Behind the scenes Several visits will show how museums can be revitalized by changing the hang of their collection and the way works are displayed

The Château de Fontainebleau will offer a visit to a painting gallery with a new hang that is currently closed to the public. Visitors to Fine Arts Week will not only be the first to see it, but will also be shown the museum’s latest acquisition, the painting Minerva Beautifies Ulysses , a very rare example of a School of Fontainebleau painting representing the decor of the Ulysses gallery.

The Musée de la Vie Romantique will explain to visitors the revised hang of its collections as well as the theory behind its future renovation.

The Château de Chantilly , has retained its 19th -century museography, with paintings hung close together, non-chronologically, on several levels because of the conditions laid down by the Duke of Aumale (1822-97), the fifth son of King Louis Philippe, when he bequeathed his château and his collection to the Institut de France. The works of art were not to be lent out, and the presentation was not to be changed. Fine Arts Week participants will be able to see the 500 works in the Painting Gallery, which was restored in 2015 under the direction of Nicole Garnier, Senior Curator in charge of the Condé Museum.

The Château de Versailles will invite participants to a private tour of the historical galleries of Versailles (the crusades rooms, the consulate or the empire rooms).