- PRESS KIT -
« IL NE FAIT JAMAIS NUIT »
29 AVRIL > Bouchard Dennis : 10 OCTOBRE 2021 (détail), 2004, Huile sur toile, 250 x 195 cm, Collection particulière, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo
Ciel - 12.01.2004
Avec le soutien de PISTE RETRAVAILLÉE Z A O W O U - K I HÔTEL DE CAUMONT DÉVELOPPEMENT / FORMAT HAUTEUR
Untitled, circa 1950, watercolour on paper, 25.5 x 21.7 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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CONTENTS
Press release ...... 4
Exhibition catalogue preface by Bruno Monnier, President of Culturespaces ...... 6
Zao Wou-Ki: Key Dates ...... 8
The Exhibition Itinerary ...... 12
The Zao Wou-Ki Foundation ...... 27
The Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre ...... 28
Culturespaces ...... 29
The Exhibition Sponsors...... 30
The Culturespaces Foundation ...... 32
Images Available for the Press ...... 33
Alongside the Exhibition ...... 37
Practical Information ...... 38
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THE HÔTEL DE CAUMONT ART CENTRE
‘NIGHT HAS NEVER FALLEN’
Until 10 October 2021
The Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre is presenting an exhibition of works by the French-Chinese artist Zao Wou-Ki (19202013), organised in collaboration with the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation. The exhibition regroups almost eighty works dating from 1935 to 2009 (oils on canvas, watercolours, and works in China ink on paper) held in public and private collections. The aim of this ensemble is to highlight one of the artist’s major creative themes: inventing new forms of spatial representation based on his experimentation with colour and the representation of light. Light and space are inextricably linked in his work and enable the viewer to understand his unremitting aim to ‘make visible’ that which is invisible and his soulhis ‘inner space’.
In the period that followed his move to Paris in 1948, Zao Wou-Ki explored the theme of daylight and nocturnal light in a series of poetic works that simply featured representations of lunar and solar stars. The shift towards abstraction in the mid 1950s, through the use of signs and symbols borrowed from Paul Klee, enriched his representation of light and darkness, expressed through an interplay of coloured masses, which clash or merge. The practice of using China ink, undertaken on a suggestion from Henri Michaux as of 1970, enabled him to develop this traditional Chinese art. He began to explore the notion of spatial voids, through the use of white or the unworked area of the paper, and fullness, through the use of black ink. His exploration of space extended into his paintings and enabled him to discover new forms of spatial representation. The works dating from the 1970s and 1980s reflect a darker side to the artist’s work that corresponded with periods of suffering or bereavement. The alternation between light and the dark side drew its inspiration from a long history of Chinese painting that sought to achieve a balance between opposites.
Inspired in the early part of his career and until the end of his life by the genius of Paul Cezanne (Hangzhou Landscape, 1946; Tribute to Cézanne, 2005), Zao Wou-Ki was also interested in capturing the unique light of the Midi. After renting a studio in the Var between 1958 and 1972, where he met up with many friends, the architect José Luis Sert built a studio for him in Ibiza in 1973a new source of inspiration.
As of 2004, Zao Wou-Ki spent several summers in the estate in the Luberon owned by the couturier Emanuel Ungaro, who was also very attached to his home city, Aix-en-Provence. Zao Wou-Ki worked in the open air, which he had not done before, and painted a series of watercolours which will be exhibited for the first time at the Hôtel de Caumont. They evoke the luminosity and the bright and muted colours of the Luberon landscapes. These works reflect his enduring love of painting in the latter part of his life.
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THE ARTISTIC PROJECT TEAM
Curatorship:
Erik Verhagen is Professor of the History of Contemporary Art at the Université Polytechnique Hauts- de-France in Valenciennes. He is at the same time an exhibition curator and art critic, and regularly contributes to the review Art Press. He has published many articles and essays, and directed and co-directed many works in both Europe and the United States. In 2007, he published the first monograph (updated in 2014) on the work of Jan Dibbets and curated an exhibition devoted to the artist in 2010 at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. He is a member of the reading committee of Critique d’Art, the editorial committee of Revue de l’Art, the scientific committee of the LAM in Villeneuve d’Ascq, and the board of the Fondation Franz Erhard Walther in Fulda. Erik Verhagen co-curated the exhibition ‘Zao Wou-Ki’ at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2018–2019) and curated the Zao Wou-Ki exhibitions at the Kamel Mennour galleries in Paris and London in 2019.
Yann Hendgen is an art historian who graduated from the second cycle of Museology at the École du Louvre and holds a master’s in Art History and Archaeology. He was Zao Wou-Ki’s personal assistant as of 2002. Since 2012, he has been the Artistic Director of the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation, which was established during the artist’s lifetime. He is responsible—in coordination with Françoise Marquet-Zao—for the perpetuation, recognition, and diffusion of the artist’s work, via editorial projects and exhibitions. Co-author of the Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures de Zao Wou-Ki, of which he was scientific editor (Volume 1, Flammarion, December 2019), he has also written many essays about the artist. The exhibitions devoted to Zao Wou-Ki, for which he has recently been co-curator, include the exhibition held in the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny (Switzerland, 2015), the Musée de l’Hospice Saint-Roch in Issoudun (France) in 2016, and at the Musée d’Art in Pully (Switzerland, 2019).
Production and creation:
Agnès Wolff, Director of Exhibitions at Culturespaces; Cecilia Braschi, Director of Exhibitions at the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre; Sophie Blanc, Registrar at the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre; and Livia Lérès and Bérangère Renard, who are responsible for iconography at Culturespaces.
Scenography:
Hubert le Gall, a French designer, artist, and contemporary art sculptor, has created original scenographies for many exhibitions, and in particular for the following exhibitions at the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre: ‘Joaquín Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light’, ‘Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro … The Great Masters of Japan – The Georges Leskowicz Collection’ (2019); ‘Masterpieces from the Guggenheimfrom Manet to Picasso: the Thannhauser Collection’ (2019); ‘Nicolas de Staël in Provence’ (2018); and ‘Sisley the Impressionist’ (2017).
This exhibition has been organised with the support of
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Exhibition Catalogue Preface by Bruno Monnier, President of Culturespaces pour le catalogue de l’exhibition
Zao Wou-Ki was one of the most important twentieth-century French artists. Born in China, he moved to Paris since 1948, he became, as of the 1950s, one of the protagonists of the renewal of painting alongside artists such as Jean-Paul Riopelle, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and Pierre Soulages.
This exhibition explores all the stages of his career and life, from his more youthful works, which were still figurative, to his later works, in which his mastery of colour, dynamic lines, and expressive freedom are unparalleled.
The itinerary’s central theme, which we owe to Yann Hendgen and Erik Verhagen, the exhibition curators, is the quest for light. In Zao Wou-Ki’s work, it is not only reflected in the construction of luminous spaces and the use of vibrant colours, but also and above all in the exploration of contrasts made visible by his study of light: the contrast between day and nightevoked in the watercolours made in the 1950s and the titles of several masterpieces in this exhibition; the contrast between the empty and full spacespresent in the canvases executed in the 1970s and, even more strikingly, in the India inks; and, lastly, the contrast between the happy and sombre periods in his lifehis encounters, travels, romantic relationships, and his relationships with his family, and also his experience of exile, his wife’s illness, and bereavement, represented on canvas through the complex relationship between light and shadow. Zao Wou-Ki’s exploration of light thus enabled him to produce extremely harmonious works that straddled the line between the figurative and the abstract, the East and the West, and the artist’s inner world and the outer world.
A focus on the south of France seemed appropriate for this Aixois exhibition devoted to the artist’s quest for light. An admirer of the work of Paul Cézanne, to whom he once again paid tribute in a magnificent diptych painted in 2005, it was in the Luberon that Zao Wou-Ki painted a series of watercolours outdoors, presented in this exhibition for the first time. In this catalogue, a previously unpublished text by Dominique de Villepin, a friend of the artist and admirer of his work, focuses specifically on his Cézannian and Provençal paintings. I would like to offer him my warmest thanks for his contribution to the catalogue.
In addition to the exhibition curators, private and institutional lenders who have entrusted us with their masterpieces, and Guy Boyer, who conceived this project, we would particularly like to thank Françoise Marquet Zao for her expertise, trust, and the exceptional loan of an ensemble of remarkable works by her husband.
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14.03.92, 1992, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
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Zao Wou-Ki: Key Dates
1920: Zao Wou-Ki is born in Peking. The T’chao family, whose family tree goes back to the Sung Dynasty (10th12th century), moves to Shanghai six months after his birth. Their surname is Romanised as Zao when the artist moves to Paris.
19201931: He grows up in a family of intellectuals who appreciate painting. His grandfather teaches him calligraphy.
1935: At the age of fifteen he passes the entry exam and is enrolled in the National School of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, where Chinese and Western teachers teach traditional painting based on representational art (drawing from plaster casts, drawing from a model, traditional Chinese painting, and calligraphy). He soon moves on and begins painting with oils.
1937: During the Japanese invasion, he leaves the School of Fine Arts and spends several difficult years travelling and wandering in central China; he subsequently moves to Chongqing in 1942, the temporary capital of the Republic of China.
1941: He is appointed as an assistant professor of painting in the School of Fine Arts at the end of his studies. In June, he marries Xie Jinglan (Lalan) in Hong Kong.
1946: He is professor in Hangzhou until the end of 1947. In June, at the ‘Exposition de peintures chinoises contemporaines’ (‘Exhibition of contemporary Chinese paintings’) at the Musée Cernuschi in Paris, Vadime Elisseeff presents ten paintings and seven drawings by Zao Wou-Ki. He strongly encourages Zao Wou-Ki to come to Paris.
1947: Farewell solo exhibition at the Ta-Hsin Department Store in Shanghai. Zao Wou-Ki decides to continue his artistic training in Paris for two years.
1948: The couple leaves Shanghai for Paris. They regularly visit the Musée du Louvre. He attends Otton Friesz’s classes and draws many nude studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. September: first exhibition at the Salon d’Automne.
1949: They move to a small studio, in Rue du Moulin-Vert in the fourteenth arrondissement. A neighbour of Alberto Giacometti for almost ten years, he becomes a close friend of the sculptor. He holds his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Creuze and participates in the Salon des Tuileries, on the invitation of Jacques Villon. He befriends the painter Jean Dubuffet. Henri Michaux writes eight poems for his first lithographs printed by the famous Desjobert printing house. Their encounter leads to a lasting friendship.
1950: First European travels, in the village of Saint-Jeoire-en-Faucigny in Savoie and in Switzerland with his friend, the painter Johnny Friedlaender.
1951: Thanks to Henri Michaux, Pierre Loeb visits Zao Wou-Ki’s studio and offers him a contract. They collaborate until 1957. At the Galerie Pierre, he befriends Jean-Paul Riopelle, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and Árpád Szenes. He also befriends Norman Bluhm and Sam Francis, American painters based in Paris. He travels to Italy, where he is fascinated by Renaissance perspective. In Bern, he is mesmerised by the paintings of Paul Klee, which influence his painting and enable him to shift to abstraction several years later.
1952: He travels to Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and England. First American solo exhibition at the Main Street Gallery in Chicago.
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1953: Beginning of his collaboration with the gallery owner Otto Stangl in Munich. He is hired by Roland Petit’s Ballets de Paris to design the sets and costumes for the ballet La Perle.
1954: Travels to Switzerland and Brittany. Retrospective of his engravings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Cincinnati. In 1964, he paints a monumental work in tribute to his friend, the composer Edgar Varèse. Vent (‘Wind’) is considered to be one of his first abstract paintings.
1955: Last exhibition at the Galerie Pierre. End of his contract with Pierre Loeb following an offer to collaborate with Gildo Caputo and Myriam Prévot, directors of the Galerie de France. He befriends the American artist Joan Mitchell, whom he meets through Jean-Paul Riopelle. In OctoberDecember: receives an Honourable Mention at the Fifth Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh.
1956: Separation with his wife Lalan. Two exhibitions of paintings and watercolours at the Kleemann Galleries in New York.
1957: First exhibition at the Galerie de France. He is reunited with his friends Hans Hartung, Mario Prassinos, Pierre Alechinsky, and Alfred Manessier, and befriends Pierre Soulages. He illustrates Les Compagnons dans le Jardin by René Char, whom he befriends. In September, he leaves Paris and sojourns at the home of his younger brother, Wou-Wai, in Montclair, New Jersey, throughout the autumn. He makes frequent trips to New York, where he joins Colette and Pierre Soulages. He meets many artists: Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Adolph Gottlieb, William Baziotes, Saul Steinberg, Hans Hoffman, Conrad Marca-Relli, and James Brooks. In November he signs a contract with the gallery owner Samuel Kootz, with whom he works until the closure of his gallery in 1967. He travels with his friends Pierre and Colette Soulages to Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco.
1958: He travels to Japan with the Soulages and then spends several months alone in Hong Kong, where he is visiting professor of the fine arts programme at the New Asia College. He meets the actress Chan May-Kan, whom he marries in July in Macau, China. August: he returns to Paris via Thailand, Greece, and Italy.
1959: FebruaryMarch: first exhibition at the Kootz Gallery in New York. October: exhibition in the French pavilion at the Venice Biennial. He buys a warehouse in Paris which he transforms into a studio.
19601964: He holds many solo exhibitions: at the Kootz Gallery in New York, the Galerie de France in Paris, the Tokyo Gallery in Tokyo, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In April 1962, he illustrates La Tentation de l’Occident by André Malraux, the French Minister of Culture, which enables him to obtain French nationality in 1964.
1965: Major retrospective at the Folkwang Museum in Essen in Germany and his last exhibition at the Kootz Gallery in New York. He befriends the young painter and film director Jean-Michel Meurice, who makes a film about him.
1970: He leads Oskar Kokoschka’s summer seminar (painting section) in Salzburg.
1971: On the advice of Henri Michaux, he resumes work with the difficult technique of India ink, which he has not practised since 1948, and which becomes a regular practice.
1972: His wife May, who has been ill for several years, passes away. Zao Wou-Ki travels to China to visit his family which he has not seen since 1948. November: exhibition of May’s sculptures, together with colour washes and drawings in India ink by Zao Wou-Ki at the Galerie de France. Press kit - Zao Wou-Ki exhibition – 9
19731977: After many months of grieving, he begins to paint again and begins working on a series of large-scale paintings. Exhibitions of recent large-scale paintings at the Galerie de France in Paris and the Fuji Television Gallery in Tokyo. He marries Françoise Marquet on 1 July 1977 in Paris.
19781979: He joins his friends Joan Mirò, Antoni Tàpies, and Eduardo Chillida in Madrid. Inauguration of the East Wing in the National Gallery, Washington, designed by his friend I.M. Pei. His donation of etchings and illustrated books is presented to the public at the Bibliothèque Nationale.
1980: The manuscript by René Char, Effilage du Sac de Jute, is illustrated with watercolours by Zao Wou-Ki. He is appointed professor of mural painting at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. Exhibition at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, where Zao Wou-Ki has not exhibited for fifteen years.
19811982: He completes two triptychs for the exhibition held at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, the first exhibition of his work in a French museum, and then in five Japanese museums, in the Hong Kong Art Center, and at the National Museum of Modern Art in Singapore.
1983: Retrospectives at the Musée Ingres in Montauban and at the Espace des Cordeliers in Châteauroux. First exhibition in his native country on the invitation of the Chinese Minister of Culture, at the National Museum in Beijing and in his old school in Hangzhou.
1985: Invited to teach painting and charcoal drawing at his old school, Zao Wou-Ki and Françoise give lessons for a month. Claude Hudelot and Pierre Muller make a film entitled Le Voyage Chinois de Zao Wou-Ki about his trip to China. He goes to Singapore to discuss with I.M. where a monumental triptych (2.80 x 10 m), commissioned for the new Raffles City complex, will be exhibited. The building’s decorations will be completed with works by Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland.
1986: He designs the poster and cover of the programme for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and exhibits at the Galerie de la Prévôté.
Zao Wou-Ki in his rural studio circa 2000, standing in front of 11.08.99 – Eclipse and the monumental triptych A Tribute to my Friend Henri Michaux, completed in March 2000, photo: Guillaume de Laubier
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19871989: Exhibitions at the Fuji Television Gallery in Tokyo, at Artcurial in Paris, and at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Metz.
19901991: Exhibitions at the Galerie Jan Krugier in Geneva, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tours, and at the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence.
1994: He illustrates Rompre le Cri by François Cheng. Retrospective at the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Mexico. In October he is awarded the Praemium Imperiale Prize for Painting by the Japanese Art Association, Japan.
1995: He is awarded the Prix de Science pour l’Art, created in Paris by the French multinational corporation LVMH.
1996: Thanks to his friend Manuel Cargaleiro, he works on a ceramic wall panel for the future underground station Oriente in Lisbon.
1998: Exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tours.
1998–1999: Major retrospective at the Shanghai Museum, the Chinese Palace of Fine Arts, Beijing, and the Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou (Canton).
20002001: His work is included in the contemporary section of the major exhibition ‘Chine, la gloire des empereurs’ at the Petit Palais, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.
2002: He is elected Member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, replacing Jean Carzou. He is received into the Academy on 26 November 2003. 2003: Major retrospective at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.
2006: He makes thirteen serigraphs for the bibliophilic book Là-bas by Dominique de Villepin. November: Zao Wou-Ki is made Grand Officier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by President Jacques Chirac at the Palais de l’Elysée.
2007: He begins painting a series of watercolours outdoors.
2010: Zao Wou-Ki stops painting in oils and makes his last watercolours on paper. He creates fourteen stained-glass windows for the dining hall of the Prieuré de Saint- Cosme, near Tours.
2011: He settles in Dully, in Switzerland, with his wife Françoise. Dominique de Villepin, Zao Wou-Ki, and Emanuel Ungaro © Marie-Laure de Villepin
9 April 2013: Zao Wou-Ki passes away in hospital, in Nyon. In accordance with his wishes, his funeral takes place at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.
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The Exhibition Itinerary
SECTION 1. ZAO WOU-KI: NIGHT HAS NEVER FALLEN
Fascinated at an early age by ‘the lightness of light or its thickness’, the young Zao Wou-Ki could undoubtedly not have imagined the extent to which light would play a key role in his future career.
During his career, which took him from his native China to Paris in 1948, light, observed on a daily basis, recorded during his travels or interiorised, continued to remind him who he was and play a part in his pictorial development, whatever the period or techniques employed.
For several decades, light reflected, within the creative process, his main link with an external environment in the painter’s Parisian studio, which was windowless and had a skylight, and which had continually cut him off from the world.
Immersing himself in light, representing it, and expressing the beauty of light through a range of colours that was continually renewed, combining the full and empty spaces, the interlacing lines in ink, and the watercolours with the white of the paper: these were the principles that formed the basis of Zao Wou-Ki’s oeuvre.
Untitled (Still Life with Apples), 19351936, oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm, private collection © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
Hangzhou Landscape, 1946, oil on canvas, 38.2 x 46.3 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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The very Cézannian still life with apples reflects, thousands of kilometres away from France, the influence that the Master from Aix had on the young fifteen-year-old Chinese painter. Seventy years of painting, relentless work, various influences, and experimentation separate this work from the 2005 monumental diptych Il ne fait jamais nuit (‘Night has never fallen’). Exhibited together, these two works show the evolution of the artist’s work and the development of his work with light.
A life devoted entirely to painting: ‘I paint my own life, but I also try to paint an invisible place, that of dreams, somewhere where one feels in perfect harmony, even in the midst of agitated shapes or opposing forces.’
Il ne fait jamais nuit (‘Night has never fallen’) – Diptych, 2005, oil on canvas, 195 x 260 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: all rights reserved
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Ville engloutie (‘Sunken city’), 1955
In 1955, Zao Wou-Ki was at a crossroads in his career. Signs and symbols derived from ancient Chinese characters, which enabled him to move away from figurative work, were still present in his work. But they were combined with coloured masses that seemed to fragment their space and attempt to take their place. Above all, there is an extensive blue area that frames the painting and appears to be threatening to engulf it. Zao Wou-Ki provided the key to understanding this painting in his Self-Portrait, published in 1988. When he painted this painting, his relationship with Lalan, whom he had married in 1941, was breaking down. She left him in 1956. This painting ‘contains the same impression of death, my feelings of engulfment and the pain of separation’.
Ville engloutie (‘Sunken city’), 1955, oil on canvas, 89 x 146 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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SECTION 2. TRAVEL JOURNALS
Like the European elite in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Zao Wou-Ki embarked on his Grand Tour in 1950: he travelled to Switzerland, Italy, Spain, England, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Eager to discover new places, he visited museums and monuments, immersing himself in new traditions that he sought to understand. Like many artists before him, he documented landscapes, famous monuments, and views of ports and cities in his travel journalsa collection of motifs that he integrated into future work in the privacy of his studio. In the summer of 1950, he accompanied his friend, the painter Johnny Friedlaender, on a trip to the Savoy Alps. Zao Wou-Ki painted a series of watercolours outdoors in two sketchbooks. The mountainous landscapes reminded him of some of the landscapes in China. Sometimes saturated, and sometimes very simplified, these watercolours attest to his desire for accurate representation, and also the representation of motifs in an almost abstract style that foreshadowed Paul Klee’s influence on his work. In his journals, as in other works of the period, the importance of sun and moon motifs is evident. These astrological symbols, natural sources of light, have a symbolic and archetypal significance. They also enabled the artist to use shifting effects of light and shade in a poetic way.
Watercolour from his journal painted at Saint-Jeoire-in-Faucigny, JulyAugust 1950, watercolour on paper, 23.5 x 31.3 cm, private collection, ©Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo Naomi Wenger
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Untitled, 1949, India ink and gouache on paper, 47 x 36.8 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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SECTION 3. SEEING THE WORLD FROM A DIFFERENT PERPSECTIVE
Several years after he settled in Paris, Zao Wou-Ki, influenced by Paul Klee, integrated invented signs and symbols into his works, based on ancient Chinese characters. He wanted to move away from figurative representation and began to explore different forms of expression. Vent (‘Wind’), in December 1954, is considered to be his first abstract painting. In 1958, the symbols changed into masses of colour. His paintings were henceforth structured around and based on the interplay of coloured masses and his treatment of light and shade. His trip to New York in the autumn of 1957 and his discovery of abstract expressionism confirmed that he had made the right choice. The 1960s marked a creative peak in his career. Zao Wou-Ki became more expressive. His compositions were large or condensed, he toyed with the interplay of colour, and produced increasingly soft mid-tone monochromes. The northern light in the studio enabled him to represent the effects of colours unaffected by the sun.
As of the beginning of the 1970s, the resumption of the India ink technique, on the advice of his friend Henri Michaux, further developed his technique: large red compositions were thus streaked with large streaks of black. The artist combined the techniques of American painting with the expressiveness of Chinese painting. The rediscovery of this technique played a role in the way in which he represented the empty and full spaces, thereby opening up new avenues in his work.
In this room are exhibited 06.10.71 and 13.09.73, in which the treatment of light is similar in a dramatic composition, influenced by the resumption of the India ink technique. They remained in the artist’s hands and were both acquired by audacious French museums following exhibitions devoted to the artist: the former was acquired in 1983 by the Musée Bertrand in Châteauroux, and the latter in 1984 by the Musée Ingres in Montauban. They have now been reunited after being separated for thirty-eight years.
06.10.71, 1971, oil on canvas, 195 x 130 cm, the Musée Bertrand Collections, Châteauroux © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: the Musée Bertrand Collections, Châteauroux
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SECTION 4. A RESTRAINED FRENZY OF COLOUR
His works in the 1960s were characterised by an explosive and frenziedand yet controlledfacture: a range of colours spread across his canvases, producing vibratory effects.
This controlled tension is also present in his paintings dating from the first third of the 1970s. The tension, which was also related to his private life at the time, reflects on canvas the state of mind of the artist, who had to deal with his wife’s illness.
Zao Wou-Ki’s works were subsequently characterised by a different kind of tension. Expressing the entanglement of ‘extreme’ emotions, it gradually led the artist towards a sense of tranquillity, ultimately enabling him to envisage the future with greater serenity and joy. This process was accompanied by luminosity, which emerged from time to time before becoming predominant in all its splendour around the middle of the decade.
01.10.73, 1973, oil on canvas, 260 x 200 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Courtesy of Christie’s
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SECTION 5. UNDER NEW SUNS
After the death of his wife, May, Zao Wou-Ki returned to China in March 1972 and saw his family for the first time since 1948. At that point, he was ready to reconnect with his roots. The paint was applied in a more diluted form, and empty spaces predominated in his works, complementing the painted areas, imbued with the ‘inspiration’ that underlies all his works. 01.04.81 materialised this fresh approach to spatial conception.
The 1980s foreshadowed a new period of tranquillity and serenity. Zao Wou-Ki worked in new studios that enabled him to change his approach to painting once again. He struck up many friendships with architects, such as the Catalan Josep Lluís Sert, who is mainly known in France due to his connection with the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence and as a spatial designer who worked with Picasso, Chagall, and Miró. Josep Lluís Sert drew up the plans for Zao Wou-Ki’s house and studio between 1965 and 1971, which were built in two phases: in 1973 and, posthumously, in the 1980s. Working in this house and studio, Zao Wou-Ki integrated the intensity of the Mediterranean light and colour saturation into works dominated by ultramarine and turquoise blues, or which were fundamentally solar, such as A Tribute to José-Luis Sert – 14.07.88.
This picture, painted five years after the architect’s death, was one of the many tributes paid by the artist to his confrères. The work—given the role it played for both of them—is imbued with Mediterranean light.
A Tribute to José Luís. Sert - 14.07.88, 1988, oil on canvas, 100 x 300 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Manuel Alves
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SECTION 6. THE JOY OF PAINTING
In his later works, Zao Wou-Ki broke away from rules and took the limits of his paintings even further. His works were imbued with expressive freedom. His new studio set up in the barn of his house in the Loiret countryside enabled him to paint large-scale works. The triptych dating from 1997–1998 went beyond the boundaries of the frame and the painted area. The emphatic theatricality of the saturated colours and light effects, as well as the tension of the composition reflect the joy of painting on canvas in the privacy of his studio.
Reflecting Chinese tradition, the artist paid tribute to the painters who inspired his career. In 1986, he executed a masterful interpretation of the famous Porte-fenêtre à Collioure (French Window at Collioure), painted by Henri Matisse in 1914, which he described as ‘magical painting (…), a door that opens onto real painting’.
A Tribute to Henri Matisse - 02.02.86, 1986
Inspired by Porte-fenêtre à Collioure (French Window at Collioure, 1914), this picture was the first of two tributes to Henri Matisse executed in the 1980s and ‘90s. Zao Wou-Ki saw this work by his predecessor as quite magical. As he said: ‘For, in front of this door, which is simultaneously empty and full, there is life, dust, and the air one breathes. But what’s behind it? It’s a huge black space. For all of us, it represents a door that opens onto real painting.’ Zao Wou-Ki wished in turn to create a variation of this ‘opening onto painting’, via his own conception of empty and painted spaces.
Triptych July-October 1997–January 1998, 1997–1998, oil on canvas, 200 x 486 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Naomi Wenger
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A Tribute to Henri Matisse I - 02.02.86, 1986, oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, bequeathed by Françoise Marquet, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
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17.12.75 – A Tribute to Turner, 1975
Joseph Mallord William Turner has a special place in the pantheon of artists who foreshadowed Western abstraction. He is, in particular, known for his representations of sunlight captured with radiant immediacy or depicted through the filter of misty landscapes. It was no doubt this second approach that inspired Zao Wou-Ki, when he decided retrospectively (in around 1996) to call this picture, executed on the bicentenary of the renaissance of English painting, Hommage à Turner (A Tribute to Turner). Lastly, it is important to point out that this ‘misty’ option, in his ‘quest to appropriate space and light’, was evocative of Chinese painting.
17.12.75 – A Tribute to Turner, 1975, oil on canvas, 55 x 55 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: all rights reserved
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SECTION 7. TURNING BACK TO HIS CHINESE ROOTS
Although, as early as the 1950s, there were rare traces of ink works on paper, mainly combined with watercolours, it was only in the 1970s, encouraged by his friend, the poet Henri Michaux, and then as of 1980, that Zao Wou-Ki devoted himself to this technique. The artist had long avoided it due to the fact that it was so typically Chinese.
The rapidity of execution, suppleness, and potential for the painter to articulate the relation between the worked and empty spaces, the whites and blacks, the liquids and the support, inspired him to undertake numerous works. The latter had a special place in his oeuvre over the last decades. Working with ink on paper gave him more freedom and a form of lucidity. It also enabled him to capture the essence of his subject and employ a more simplified technique.
At the crossroads of his abstract work—which he began after his move to France—and his Chinese heritage, this technique ultimately coincided with a period of maturity and peacefulness. Zao Wou-Ki was now reconciled with his origins and was able to nurture them via a form of abstraction he had been cultivating since the second half of the 1950s. This treatment of light was more studied and complex, and the white of the support and the black of the ink complemented one another, combining Western and Eastern approaches.
Untitled, 1982, India ink on paper, 103 x 103 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Naomi Wenger
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SECTION 8. WATERCOLOURS PAINTED OUTDOORS
Zao Wou-Ki suddenly shifted his approach when he devoted himself, as of 2007, to series of watercolours painted outdoors, with a focus on representing motifs. This sudden change was even more surprising as the painter habitually worked, as attested by his Parisian studio, inside rooms that had little connection with plants. No doubt, as he grew older, he felt the need to re-establish a more immediate relation with the world and the elements, and resume the minute observation of nature that had guided his decision to become a painter during his adolescence. Zao Wou-Ki sought to relive these sensations by representing familiar sites, such as the landscapes of Ibiza, Saint-Tropez, and the Loiret département, or those discovered during his travels. It was during one of these trips that he created the series of watercolours that represented the light- spattered plants in the estate of La Cavalerie—owned by his friend Emanuel Ungaro—, where the painter loved to relax in the latter years of his life. Everything about this series of works on paper makes it the swansong of an artist who not only succeeded in regenerating his approach at a late stage in his career, but also managed to catch off guard a general public that had long categorised him as an abstract artist.
Untitled (La Cavalerie), 2008, watercolour on paper, 57 x 77 cm, private collection,© Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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SECTION 9. STOPPING NIGHTFALL
The 2000s was a period of intense activity, during which Zao Wou-Ki painted tributes to relatives and confrères—Henri Michaux in 2000, Françoise Marquet in 2003, and Jean Leymarie in 2006—and the painter Jean-Paul Riopelle. In his tribute to the latter executed in 2003, the artist drew inspiration from two Canadian maple trees offered by his friend which were planted in his gardens in Paris and the Loiret. These sources foreshadowed a return to nature that marked the final years of his creative work.
His 2005 tribute to Paul Cézanne echoed one of the Provençal painter’s variations on Mont Sainte-Victoire, seventy years after painting a still life that reflected Cézanne’s influence on his work. it was no arbitrary decision that this ultimate declaration of admiration for a painter should be dedicated to Cézanne, as the latter had played such a decisive role in his career.
‘It was Cézanne who helped me to find my path, and reconnect with myself as a Chinese painter’, stated Zao Wou-Ki in later years. Several months before paying tribute to him, the artist painted the diptych Il ne fait jamais nuit (‘Night has never fallen’, exhibited in the first exhibition room). This title was borrowed from the writer Florence Delay, who also underlined—referring to the picture Ciel (Sky, 2004)—the division ‘between the nocturnal and diurnal forces that prevent night from falling’. This perfectly summarises the artist’s twilight works.
A Tribute to Cézanne - 06.11.2005, 2005, oil on canvas, 162 x 260 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
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Sky - 12.01.2004, 2004, oil on canvas, 250 x 195 cm, private collection © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
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The Zao Wou-Ki Foundation
Founded in Switzerland during the artist’s lifetime and registered at the Commercial Register in the Canton of Geneva, the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation aims to promote the life and works of the painter Zao Wou-Ki, by supporting the artistic and cultural activities associated with his oeuvre. The Foundation has collaborated on the last major exhibitions devoted to Zao Wou-Ki at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny (Switzerland) in 201516, the Asia Society Museum in New York, the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville (USA) in 201617, the Asia University Museum of Modern Art in Taichung (Taiwan) in 201718, and at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 201819.
The Foundation has also produced reference books on the artist, such as Zao Wou-Ki et les poètes (Albin Michel, 2015) and L’homme des deux rives. Zao Wou-Ki collectionneur (Flammarion, 2016). Volume I of the Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures (19351958), which was begun in 2015, was published in November 2019, and included an essay by Dominique de Villepin. Volumes 2 and 3, which are currently being prepared, will be published circa 2022.
Via all its initiatives and the protection of the artist’s moral rights exercised by its President Françoise Marquet-Zao, the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation pays tribute to, preserves, and disseminates the work of one of the major artists of the second half of the twentieth century, in order to ensure its transmission to future generations.
President: Françoise Marquet-Zao
Artistic Director: Yann Hendgen
www.zaowouki.org
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The Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre
Lloyd
Sophie
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Culturespaces
A CULTURAL INSTITUTION WITH A MISSION OF GENERAL INTEREST Listed as a Historic Monument, the Hôtel de Caumont is one of Aix-en-Provence’s finest private mansions and dates back to the eighteenth century. Located near the Cours Mirabeau thoroughfare, in the Mazarin district, it has been completely restored in order to house a new Art Centre (since May 2015). Open to all forms of art, the Art Centre aims to present two temporary exhibitions every year, devoted to the major artists in the history of art, from ancient art to the present day. Recreating the atmosphere and aesthetic characteristics of the eighteenth century, the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre is an important cultural centre in Aix-en- Provence, in which art can be discovered and shared with passion.
CÉZANNE AU PAYS D’AIX (‘CÉZANNE AT AIX’) This twenty-minute film is screened every day in the auditorium; the film presents the career of the great Impressionist painter and precursor of cubism, and his passion for Aix-en-Provence and the region, and focuses on the major events that influenced his life and art.
CONFERENCES, CONCERTS, AND ARTISTIC PERFORMANCES The Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre is a venue where various types of artistic expression can be exchanged and shared. Consequently, it hosts lectures and conferences, as well as musical events to broaden artistic horizons.
THE CAFÉ CAUMONT Located in the historic salons on the ground floor with a terrace overlooking the French gardens, the Café Caumont offers delicious cuisine. The Café provides an elegant environment in the heart of the Mazarin district, in which one can enjoy a peaceful lunch, a brunch, a pastry at teatime, or a drink of hot chocolate
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Culturespaces
With thirty years of experience and more than 4.5 million visitors a year, Culturespacesfounded in 1990 by Bruno Monnieris the leading private operator in the management and promotion of monuments, museums, and art centres. Since 2012, Culturespaces has also become a pioneer in the creation of digital art centres and immersive digital exhibitions.
Sites promoted and managed by Culturespaces: - the Hall des Lumières, New York (opening in 2022) - the Infinity des Lumières, Dubai (opening in 2021) - the Bassins de Lumières in Bordeaux (since 2020) - the Bunker de Lumières, Jeju (since 2018) - the Atelier des Lumières in Paris (since 2018) - the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre, Aix-in-Provence (since 2015) - the Carrières de Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence (since 2012) - the Maison Carrée, the Tour Magne, and the Nîmes Amphitheatre (since 2006) - the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and the Antique Theatre in Orange (since 2002) - the Cité de l’Automobile in Mulhouse (since 1999) - the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris (since 1996) - the Castle of Les Baux-de-Provence (since 1993) - the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (since 1992)
Culturespaces oversees the promotion of the venues and collections, the reception of the general public, the management of staff and all the services, cultural animation, the holding of temporary exhibitions, and the sites’ national and international communication.
Aware of the importance of preserving the national heritage for future generations, Culturespaces also contributes each year to funding restoration campaigns on the monuments and collections it manages.
Culturespaces, which focuses on visitor experience to promote cultural democratisation, offers the highest standards in the reception of the general public: each venue is open seven days a week, there are free audio guides, visitor applications, free activity books and Wi-Fi, and discounted admission prices for families, the youngest visitors, and retired persons.
www.culturespaces.com
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The Exhibition Sponsors
THE FONDATION CRÉDIT AGRICOLE ALPES PROVENCE, A STEADFAST SPONSOR OF THE HÔTEL DE CAUMONT
The Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence is proud, via its Corporate Foundation, to continue its commitment
to supporting the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre.
As a cooperative bank, the Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence demonstrates its values of proximity, utility, and responsibility via concrete sponsorship initiatives that benefit local enterprise. Hence, the regional bank supports initiatives in the fields of solidarity, education, and in particular, sport, heritage, innovation, the environment, and culture. In its role as an economic actor, the bank backs projects that promote local life, and supports sectors that have suffered during the current health crisis, such as culture.
In this context, the regional bank, via its Corporate Foundation, has consolidated its support for the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre, and, in particular the exhibition Zao Wou-Ki, ‘Il ne fait jamais nuit’ (‘Night Has Never Fallen’) After sponsoring seven major cultural events held by the Hôtel de Caumont since its establishment, the Fondation Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence is now the leading sponsor of art and culture in Provence. By continuing its support for major exhibitions held in its area, the regional bank is helping to make art and culture accessible to as many people as possible.
The Crédit Agricole Alpes Provence created its Corporate Foundation in 2006 to promote the cooperative bank’s values and put them into effect through initiatives related to the sharing of knowledge and culture, education, sport, the conservation and promotion of heritage, and solidarity in our region (the Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, and Hautes-Alpes). Today, more than 480 projects have received funding, thus enriching the region’s economy, heritage, and culture.
Press contact: [email protected] +33 (0)6 08 76 93 92
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MUTUELLES DU SOLEIL: ACTIVELY SUPPORTING REGIONAL CULTURAL ACTORS
Already the sponsor of several cultural institutions, the group Mutuelles du Soleil is strengthening its initiatives by working with the prestigious Hôtel de Caumont. This residence, which is so emblematic of Aix’s heritage, brings together the richness of historical French architecture and an exhibition centre that displays artistic works. A committed actor involved in social protection and the access to care for all, the Mutuelles du Soleil is extending its involvement in reginal life and its support for artistic heritage.
Culture has the potential to facilitate access to the notion of emancipation, well-being, and serenity, values that are vital to Mutuelles du Soleil. One only has to look around to see that art is omnipresent, like an open-air gallery. Our goal is to continue to promote art and the emotion it conveys and make people aware that it is readily accessible. For all these reasons, Mutuelles du Soleil is investing in culture and, more specifically, in this splendid historical building—the Hôtel de Caumont.
By supporting the exhibition, ‘Il ne fait jamais nuit’ (‘Night has Never Fallen’), featuring works by the French artist of Chinese origin and great master of abstraction and light, Zao Wou-Ki, Mutuelles du Soleil has demonstrated its desire to pursue similar goals by combining modernity, proximity, and identity via this unique sponsorship. But, most importantly, it highlights the fact that art has no boundaries.
About Mutuelles du Soleil: A major healthcare actor in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region and in Occitanie, Mutuelles du Soleil has strong regional roots and more than 170 years of experience in the field of social protection: complementary healthcare cover, occupational benefit provision, retirement, preventive insurance, and housing. Its strengths lie in its expertise and local initiatives, thanks to a significant territorial presence, with twenty-three agencies located in eight départements (nos. 04, 05, 06, 13, 30, 34, 83, and 84), including an agency devoted to members outside the départements. Mutuelles du Soleil also has a network of services and healthcare that is accessible to all. Transparency, respect, solidarity, and goodwill constitute its principles and values, and the loyalty of its members is its finest reward. www.mutuellesdusoleil.fr
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The Culturespaces Foundation
In 2021, the Culturespaces Foundation is continuing to pursue its initiatives at the Hôtel de Caumont, with the educational and cultural programme ‘À la Découverte de l’Hôtel de Caumont’ (‘Discovering the Hôtel de Caumont’) and the tour itinerary ‘Entre cour et jardin’ (‘The courtyard and gardens’).
Thanks to an educational workshop comprising role play and entertaining activities, children learn about the history of art and discover what daily life was like in the eighteenth century. Then, as the children discover the private mansion in the form of a treasure hunt, the aim is to promote greater access to and familiarity with the regional heritage through active educational activities. The itinerary ‘Entre cour et jardin’ offers children an immersive and sensory tour, which explores nature and the art of traditional French gardens. These educational and cultural initiatives are provided free of charge to children aged 6 to 11 in high- priority educational establishments, social structures, and hospitals in the Région Sud. With these two initiatives, the Culturespaces Foundation will enable 1,000 children who have limited access to culture, as well as almost 250 indirect beneficiaries (teachers, educators, parents, etc.) to enjoy a unique experience.
In partnership with
With the generous support of la Fondation DENIBAM
About the Culturespaces Foundation: To combat inequalities in access to culture, the Culturespaces Foundation has been developing educational programmes (since 2009) aimed at children who are made vulnerable by illness, or suffer from a handicap or social exclusion Thanks to tailor-made educational projects, the Foundation helps the children discover a universal historical and artistic heritage, to help them develop through culture, which forges social bonds and is a vector of emancipation. Entertaining and interactive experiences are available in ten exceptional cultural establishments, including the Nîmes amphitheatre, the Castle of Les Baux-de- Provence, the Carrières de Lumières, the Hôtel de Caumont, and the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in the Région Sud. By raising awareness about culture, art, and heritage in an inclusive and engaging way, the Culturespaces Foundation has succeeded in reconciling solidarity and creativity. This singular quality means that the Culturespaces Foundation has become a major actor in France in terms of promoting artistic and cultural awareness for vulnerable children. In 2021, the Foundation’s initiatives will help 10,000 children.
The Culturespaces Foundation is under the aegis of the Fondation Agir Contre l’Exclusion (FACE).
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Images available for the press
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1. 14.03.92, 1992, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
2. Untitled (La Cavalerie), 2008, watercolour on paper, 57 x 77 cm, private collection© Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
3. Sky - 12.01.2004, 2004, oil on canvas, 250 x 195 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
4. Untitled, 1982, India ink on paper, 103 x 103 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Naomi Wenger
5. A Tribute to Cézanne - 06.11.2005, 2005, oil on canvas, 162 x 260 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
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6. Untitled (Still Life with Apples), 1935-1936, oil on canvas, 46 x 61 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
7. Paysage Hangzhou (‘Hangzhou landscape’), 1946, oil on canvas, 38,2 x 46.3 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
8. Ville engloutie (‘Sunken city’), 1955, oil on canvas, 89 x 146 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
9. Sketchbook sheet painted at Saint-Jeoire-en-Faucigny, July–August 1950, watercolour on paper, 23.5 x 31.3 cm, private collection, ©Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo Naomi Wenger
10. Untitled (Paysage de nuit, ‘Night landscape’)), 1948, oil on canvas, 40 x 34 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
11. Untitled, 1949, India ink and gouache on paper, 47 x 36.8 cm, private collection © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
12. Untitled, circa 1950, watercolour on paper, 25.5 x 21.7 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Antoine Mercier
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13. Il ne fait jamais nuit (‘Night has Never Fallen’)– Diptych, 2005, oil on canvas, 195 x 260 cm, private collection © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: all rights reserved
14. A Tribute to Henri Matisse I - 02.02.86, 1986, oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, bequeathed by Françoise Marquet, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Dennis Bouchard
15. Triptych: July-October 1997 - January 1998, 1997–1998, oil on canvas, 200 x 486 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Naomi Wenger
16. A Tribute to José Luís. Sert - 14.07.88, 1988, oil on canvas, 100 x 300 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Manuel Alves
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17. 06.10.71, 1971, oil on canvas, 195 x 130 cm, the Musée Bertrand Collection in the city of Châteauroux © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Collections Musée Bertrand de la Ville de Châteauroux
18. 01.10.73, 1973, oil on canvas, 260 x 200 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: Courtesy Christie’s
19. 17.12.75 - A Tribute to Turner, 1975, oil on canvas, 55 x 55 cm, private collection, © Adagp, Paris, 2021, photo: all rights reserved
20. Zao Wou-Ki in his country studio, circa 2000, standing in front of 11.08.99 – Eclipse and the large triptych >A Tribute to my Friend Henri Michaux, completed in March 2000, photo: Guillaume de Laubier
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Alongside the exhibition
THE CATALOGUE
To complement the exhibition, Culturespaces and In Fine are publishing a 178-page catalogue that includes all the works presented at the Hôtel de Caumont and previously unpublished texts by Yann Hendgen, Erik Verhagen and Dominique de Villepin. On sale for €29 in the museum’s cultural gift shop and online: www.boutique-culturespaces.com
A SPECIAL EDITION OF CONNAISSANCE DES ARTS
On sale in the Art Centre’s cultural gift shop and online: www.boutique-culturespaces.com
THE GUIDED TOUR APPLICATION
This application, which is available in French and English, enables you to discover the finest works in the exhibition thanks to around twenty audio commentaries and the exhibition preview.
THE ACTIVITY BOOK FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Given freely to each child (712 years old) who visits the exhibition, this activity book provides a guide that enables youngsters to observe, in an entertaining way, the major works in the exhibition by solving various puzzles.
TOURS
Guided tours for groups and individuals are available for the entire duration of the exhibition. Workshop tours are also available for children aged five to twelve. Reservations: www.caumont-centredart.com
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Practical information
ADDRESS
Hôtel de Caumont-Centre d’Art 3, rue Joseph Cabassol 13100 Aix-in-Provence Tel.: +33 (0)4 42 20 70 01 www.caumont-centredart.com #HotelDeCaumont
OPENING TIMES
Opening scheduled on 29 April, until 10 October 2021. The Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre is open every day including on bank holidays.
Throughout the exhibition: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Last admission: 30 minutes before closing time.
The Café-Caumont and the cultural gift shop are open to everyone every day during the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre’s opening times.
ADMISSION FEES
Visit to the Hôtel de Caumont Art Centre + exhibition: Regular admission: €14.5 I Senior rate (aged 65 and over): €13.5 Discounted admission (students, job seekers, disability card holders, and ‘Pass Education’ card holders – upon presentation of a valid proof of entitlement): €11.5 Young person’s rate (aged 7 to 25): €10 I Family rate: €43 Free for children under 7 and journalists (upon presentation of a valid proof of entitlement)
PRESS CONTACT
Claudine Colin Communication Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 72 60 01 Lola Véniel: [email protected] - +33 (0)6 85 90 39 69
MEDIA PARTNERS
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3, Rue Joseph Cabassol 13100 Aix-in-Provence Tel.: +33 (0)4 42 20 70 01 www.caumont-centredart.com
Open 7 days a week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (OctoberApril) from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (MaySeptember)
PRESS CONTACT Claudine Colin Communication Lola Véniel [email protected] Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 72 60 01 www.claudinecolin.com