press kit - culturespaces · corot, van gogh, and cézanne, was soon compiled and formed the heart...

1 Press release - The Bührle Collection

20 march - 21 july 2019

PRESS KIT


Emil Bührle et sa collection, 1954Photographie de Dmitri Kessel pour LIFE© Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty images

CONTENTS

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PRESS RELEASE

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PREFACE BY BRUNO MONNIER, PRESIDENT OF CULTURESPACES

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‘THE ORIGIN OF MY COLLECTION’ BY EMIL BÜHRLE

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ITINERARY OF THE EXHIBITION

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KEY DATES Page 18

THE LOOTED AND ‘FLIGHT’ WORKS OF ART IN THE EMIL BÜHRLE COLLECTION

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THE EXHIBITION TEAM

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THE MUSÉE MAILLOL

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CULTURESPACES, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF THE EXPOSITION

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THE CULTURESPACES FONDATION

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VISUALS AVAILABLE FOR THE PRESS

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AROUND THE EXHIBITION

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PRACTICAL INFORMATION


In the spring of 2019, the Musée Maillol will exhibit masterpieces from the Emil Bührle Collection, one of the most prestigious private collections in the world. Exhibited for the first time in France, this ensemble, which was assembled between 1936 and 1956 in Zurich, provides a panorama of French art from the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.

AN EXHIBITION

The manufacturer Emil Georg Bührle (1890–1956), who was born in Germany, settled in Switzerland in 1924 and collected—mainly between 1951 and 1956—more than 600 artworks. For the first time in Paris, some of these masterpieces are presented and brought together within the same exhibition. Featuring around fifty works from the Emil Bührle Collection, the exhibition includes several modern art movements: works by the major Impressionists (Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, and Sisley) and Post-Impressionist artists (Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec), works from the beginning of the twentieth century by the Nabis (Bonnard and Vuillard), the Fauves (Braque, Derain, and Vlaminck), and the École de Paris (Modigliani), and, lastly, the art of Picasso. In anticipation of its permanent home in the new extension of the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Emil Bührle Collection is currently on a national and international tour. After the Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne in 2017 and three major museums in Japan in 2018, the Musée Maillol will have the privilege of displaying masterpieces such as La petite danseuse de quatorze ans by Degas (Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, circa 1880), Monet’s Les coquelicots près de Vétheuil (Poppies Near Vétheuil, circa 1879), Cézanne’s Le garçon au gilet rouge (Boy in a Red Waistcoat, circa 1888), and Le semeur au soleil couchant by Van Gogh (Sower at Sunset, 1888). This comparative approach will highlight the links and filiations between the artistic movements that existed during various eras, while illustrating each painter’s personal contribution to the history of art. Emil Bührle, for whom past works had an influence on those of the present, remarked that ‘Ultimately, Daumier led to Rembrandt, and Manet to Frans Hals’. The exhibition will also shed light on the history of this collection itself of a Swiss manufacturer during World War II and the decade that followed. Archive documents ans photographs will reveal Bührle’s relations with the art dealers in Paris. An exhibition of major paintings from one of the world’s most important collections.

Curatorship : Lukas Gloor, director of the Emil Bührle Collection, Zurich.

20 MARCH-21 JULY 2019

THE EMIL BÜHRLE COLLECTION DELACROIX - MANET - DEGAS - RENOIR - MONET - CÉZANNE - GAUGUIN - VAN GOGH - MODIGLIANI - PICASSO...

Press release - Musée Maillol 5

PREFACE BY BRUNO MONNIER, PRESIDENT OF CULTURESPACES

Culturespaces is proud to present—for the first time in France—an exceptional ensemble of masterpieces from the Emil Bührle Collection, one of the most prestigious private col-lections in the world, at the Musée Maillol. The exhibition brings together works by the great names of modern art, from the masters of Impressionism and post-Impressionism (Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, etc.) to Picasso, the Nabis (Bonnard and Vuillard), the Fauves, the cubists (Braque, Derain, and Vlaminck), and the School of Paris (Modigliani): the fifty-seven works in the exhibition highlight in a fas-cinating way the connections between the artistic movements in various periods, while showing each painter’s personal contribution to the history of art.

The exhibition is also a historical testimony, as it presents the unique history of the col-lection, which was entirely assembled by Emil Bührle during the Second World War and the decade that followed. Emil Bührle, who was born in Germany and became a Swiss citizen in 1937, assembled his collection between 1936 and 1956. In the turbulent period of the Second World War, the industrialist trustingly approached various art dealers, who improperly sold him certain works, which were subsequently identified as looted artworks. An entire room is thus devoted to tracing, as precisely as possible, the origin of each work and explaining how, after having restituted the works to their rightful owners, the collector reacquired most of them. This exhibition is also a unique event that we are proud to hold for the Parisian gene-ral public, because these works will soon be permanently joining the rest of the Bührle Foundation Collection, in the new extension to the Kunsthaus in Zürich. This project would never have got off the ground without the valuable and generous support of Emil Bührle’s descendants and the Board of the E. G. Bührle Foundation Collection, to whom I extend my warmest thanks. It was developed through the strong commitment of Lukas Gloor, director of the E. G. Bührle Foundation Collection and cu-rator of the exhibition, to whom I express my deepest gratitude. Lastly, I would also like to thank the Fondation Dina Vierny and its President, Olivier Lor-quin, who have enabled us to present this exceptional exhibition at the Musée Maillol.

Bruno Monnier,President of Culturespaces


CONFERENCE:‘THE ORIGIN OF MY COLLECTION’ -14 JUNE 1954

On 14 June 1954, Emil Bührle gave a speech at the University of Zurich. He presented his collection and explained how it was compiled. Employing a metaphor, he explained how and why he expanded his collection over the years: ‘I would like to use an image: when you throw a stone into a pond, it creates a concentric circle, then a second and third circle and so on, depending on how hard the stone is thrown. With this image in mind, I will tell you how, where, and when the stone landed in the water and what the concentric effects were.’ At the beginning of his speech, he told his audience that his story began during ‘the carefree years that preceded the great global tragedy, whose repercussions are far from over.’

In 1909, the schoolboy Emil Bührle decided to study literature, philosophy, and art history. It was in Berlin that he discovered ‘for the first time, in autumn 1913, the magnificent paintings from the French School, which the brilliant Swiss Director of the National Gallery, Hugo von Tschudi, had purchased despite the fury of the German Emperor.’

He stated: ‘The unique atmosphere of these paintings, and above all that of the highly evocative landscape of Vétheuil by Claude Monet, made a lasting impression on me.’

‘It was exactly at that point, when I saw the works executed by the French painters, that the stone landed in the water, and henceforth I decided that if I were ever to adorn my walls with paintings by the masters, my choice would be Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Cézanne. (...) Don’t forget that in 1913, although the Impressionists—above all Cézanne and Van Gogh—were no longer treated with the same universal contempt that had existed until the end of the previous century, they were still highly contested and a number of museums still refused to display their works.’

The collector went on to talk about the First World War: ‘Everything began with the shots fired in Sarajevo in the summer of 1914; then came the war, and I was drafted in September and stayed until the end, fighting on every front.’

He explained that henceforth he decided to ‘distinguish between the preoccupations of an art collector and those of a professional art dealer.’


Bührle then resumed his metaphor:

‘It was only in 1936 that the first circular ripple emerged in the water where the stone had landed; I was able to purchase—with the support of my ever-enthusiastic wife—my first drawing by Degas and a still life by Renoir. The first circle, which consisted of the works of Corot, Van Gogh, and Cézanne, was soon compiled and formed the heart of my collection. Gradually a wave formed that encompassed the Fauves and the Romantics, including Delacroix and Daumier. Daumier led me to Rembrandt, and Manet to Frans Hals. When it came to the seventeenth-century painters, that left the Dutch and Flemish artists. A third circle included the French painters from the end of the eighteenth century and the modern artists. The aesthetic link between the Impressionists and the eighteenth-century Venetians led me to the names Canaletto, Guardi, and Tiepolo.’

He declared that he had been interested in a general exhibition of his collection for some time and concluded his speech with his definition of a collector: ‘I would say that a true collector is really an artist at heart. A collector is defined by the quality of his/her choices and by the judicious assembly of the works of art.’

Amedeo Modigliani, Nu couché, 1916, huile sur toile, 65,5 x 87 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)


ITINERARY OF THE EXHIBITION

SECTION 1. ÉDOUARD MANET For the most part, it was his works that provoked a scandal at the Salon that established the reputation of Édouard Manet, and although his works were never exhibited alongside those of their group, the young Impressionist painters had great admiration for him. Manet was not only involved in the artistic trends of his time, he was also fascinated by the paintings of the old masters. The singular passion with which Emil Bührle collected Manet’s works was also rooted in this same source: a curiosity for the shared characteristics that—ever since the Renaissance—formed the links between paintings from different eras.

Painted in earthy hues, Les Hirondelles (The Swallows, 1873) depicts two ladies dressed in city clothes—the artist’s mother and wife—in a landscape: Manet saw himself as an artist who could represent this aspect of modern life. In the Emil Bührle Collection, there is a pendant for this painting in the form of a stormy landscape painted by the Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp 230 years earlier. This painting was also executed in a studio and it combines an excellent composition with a lively pictorial style, which wonderfully conveys the menacing atmosphere of thunder. In contrast, the brightly coloured scene of Coin du jardin de Bellevue (Corner of the Garden at Bellevue, 1880) on the outskirts of Paris, which was painted outdoors and without a preparatory drawing, attests to how Impressionist Manet’s painting style had become towards the end of his life.

As a complement to the large-format works in his collection, Emil Bührle also added smaller works in which Manet tackled new subject matter, as illustrated by the fascinating Le Suicidé (The Suicide, circa 1877).

1. Aelbert Cuyp, Orage sur Dordrecht, vers 1645, huile sur toile, 77,5 x 107 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 2. Edouard Manet, Les Hirondelles, 1873, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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SECTION 2. BEFORE IMPRESSIONISM The Impressionists systematically associated their art with the French painting that preceded them. They admired the vigorous palette and the force of the pictorial expressiveness of Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the Romanticist school of painting. At the same time, they saw him as a precursor who managed to impose his own approach after a gruelling battle against the rules laid down by the Académie. Delacroix also succeeded thanks to prestigious commissions to adorn official buildings, such as the ceiling of the Galerie d’Apollon, in the Musée du Louvre.

Eugène Delacroix, Apollon vainqueur du serpent Python, vers 1853, huile sur toile, 110 x 99,5 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)


SECTION 3. LANDSCAPES AND IMPRESSIONIST FIGURES

Landscapes brought Emil Bührle into contact with the paintings of the French Impressionists. As a young art history student, he discovered their works in the German National Gallery in Berlin, barely forty years after the group had held its first group exhibition in Paris. Critics had quickly identified Claude Monet as the most eminent landscape painter in the Impressionist movement. The two paintings with poppies in the Collection, executed on the outskirts of Vétheuil, attest to the potency of the artist’s pictorial techniques. They both represent the same motif and were painted practically at the same time. Both works show that Monet was constantly experimenting with new forms of expression. While the vertical composition conveys the atmospheric lightness of the landscape, the highly structured horizontal format of the painting superimposes several planes over one another. In this work the field is covered in dabs of speckled colour, and each red stroke could be interpreted as a flower or a face; the Seine is painted with broad brushstrokes, with the wind-blown foliage of the trees on the riverbanks, and the overcast sky is represented with decisive strokes.

The Impressionists, who painted outdoors, required small-format canvases that they could take with them on their excursions near Paris. The paintings executed by Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley clearly show the great diversity in the degree of execution and finish of their works. On the one hand, highly realistic clouds and many details can be seen in L’Été à Bougival (Summer at Bougival, 1876), while other paintings, with less emphatic treatment, are more like sketches. In both cases the signatures of the painters indicated that their picture was finished.

1. Claude Monet, Champ de coquelicots près de Vétheuil, vers 1879, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cm, Legs Dr. Dieter BührleCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

2. Alfred Sisley, Été à Bougival, 1876, huile sur toile, 47 x 62 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir were—as part of the Impressionists of 1874—the most important portraitists. The famous Petite Irène (Little Irene, 1880), a commissioned work representing the daughter of a Parisian banker, was exhibited in the Salon and attracted much attention to the painter, who at the time was relatively unknown. The two girls in straw hats became a subject that Renoir, whose reputation had been established in the meantime, also represented in engravings. Degas, in contrast, painted without any need to sell his works to survive. The portrait of an artist colleague with his two daughters, Ludovic Lepic et ses filles (Count Lepic and his Daughters, circa 1871), remained in his studio until his death. Painting his sitters in daylight, outside their house, Degas was exceptionally experimenting with the art of outdoor painting.

Throughout his life, Edgar Degas was fascinated with representing movement, whence his penchant for depicting dancing women and jockeys on their racing horses. He handled both themes by applying simplifying effects and superimposition, which he studied in his studio with the help of small wax sculptures. Only the figure of the Danseuse de quatorze ans (Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer) was created in a large format for an exhibition in 1881. The work was only cast in bronze after the artist’s death.

1. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait de Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d’Anvers (La petite Irène), 1880, huile sur toile, 65 x 54 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

2. Edgar Degas, Ludovic Lepic et ses filles, vers 1871, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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SECTION 4. PARIS 1900

Emil Bührle was truly fascinated by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The collector did his best to collect all the subjects that interested the painter: poster projects, portraits, and brothel and theatre scenes. The addition of Toulouse-Lautrec’s works took the Bührle Collection beyond Impressionism. The artist was part of a generation that became familiar with the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac very early on and which soon formed—on the Parisian artistic scene at the turn of the century—an influential part of the modernist movement.

Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, members of the Nabis group founded under the influence of Paul Gauguin, applied their subtle lines and colours in landscape painting to interiors. Both painters represented the Art Nouveau apartments of their time, in which the figures seem to blend in with the colourful carpets and wallpaper.

In 1895, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard organised in his Parisian gallery the first retrospective of Paul Cézanne, who was fifty-six at the time. This exhibition earned the painter the recognition of younger artists, who revered him as ‘the father of modern art’. Bonnard drew the portrait of Ambroise Vollard sitting in front of a picture that could have been painted by Cézanne. In 1901, it was Vollard once again who presented Pablo Picasso’s first solo exhibition. It was during this event that Picasso executed the portrait of one of his art critic friends in Vollard’s gallery, posing before his paintings hanging in the background.

1. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Messaline, 1901, huile sur toile, 92 x 68 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 2. Edouard Vuillard, Le Numéro d’illusionniste, vers 1895, huile sur carton, 49 x 39 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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SECTION 5. THE POST-IMPRESSIONISTS

The quest for the ‘absolute masterpiece’, in which an artist reaches the peak of their art, is an idea that fascinated nineteenth-century artists. Critics have identified Le Garçon au gilet rouge (Boy with a Red Waistcoat, 1888/90) from the Bührle Collection as a masterpiece, considering it to be the most captivating of the four versions that Cézanne painted of the same sitter.

Bührle also incorporated the other two early masters of modern art in his collection. Le Semeur (The Sower, 1888), which Vincent van Gogh painted in Arles, was an example of the artist’s longstanding interest in representing peasant scenes. The disc of the setting sun has both a real and symbolic signification, as it plunges the landscape into a suggestive light and magnifies the figure of the farmer, who is crowned with a halo. Executed at the end of his life in the distant southern seas, Paul Gauguin’s L’Offrande (The Offering, 1902) might also aspire—as the synthesis of his artistic oeuvre—to the status of masterpiece. The picture conveys the artist’s fascination with the golden-hued skin of the peoples of Polynesia, whom he depicted in their earthly paradise.

One of the major characteristics of the Emil Bührle Collection is that, alongside masterpieces by the great masters and mature works, he also collected the early works of painters he was interested in, which shed light on certain aspects of their careers. He sought to demonstrate in his collection the individual evolution of painters who had played—since Impressionism—a decisive role in the development of art. This idea was fashionable in the 1950s: it was the quest of the modern artists to constantly experiment with new ideas that led to the development of painting and art in general.

1. Paul Cézanne, Le Garçon au gilet rouge, 1888-1890 Huile sur toile, 79,5 x 64 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 2. Vincent Van Gogh, Le semeur, soleil couchant, 1888, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cmCollection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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SECTION 6. MODERN ART Although Emil Bührle considered that Impressionism was fundamentally influenced by more ancient art forms, he also saw the movement as part of a new élan that would gradual-ly become the foremost movement in the twentieth century and establish itself as mo-dern art. Hence, he complemented the Impressionist core of his collection not only with paintings by the great masters, but also with works by painters who were capable of surpassing their predecessors with increasingly radical formulas.

In the Bührle Collection, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck embodied the new tends in the 1903 Salon d’Automne. Here, regular retrospectives of modern artists were held, which enabled the general public to follow the development of modern art. The young artists were also able to compare their works with those of their predecessors. At the start of their careers, Derain and Vlaminck were greatly inspired by Cézanne and Van Gogh.

For some time, Pablo Picasso’s work was not included in the Bührle Collection. His attitude changed in 1953; the collector became aware of the painter’s importance when he visited a Picasso exhibition in Milan. Yet another masterpiece was added to his collection when he bought L’Italienne (Italian Woman, 1917). And when the American journalist Dmitri Kessel wanted to photograph him amongst the works he had assembled, Emil Bührle decided to hang up the Nature morte (Still Life) painted by Picasso in 1941, which was the most recent addition to his collection.

Pablo Picasso, Nature morte avec fleurs et citrons, 1941, huile sur toile, 92 x 73 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) © Succession Picasso, 2019


31 August 1890: Emil Georg Bührle is born in Pforzheim, in south-west Germany.

1909-1914: Bührle studies philology and the history of art at the universities of Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. During a visit to Berlin, he is impressed by his discovery of the Impressionist paintings in the National gallery.

1914-1918: Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Bührle is drafted into the German army.

1920: Emil Bührle marries Charlotte Schalk, the daughter of a banker. He joins the ma-chine-tool factory in Magdeburg, a company in which his father-in-law holds shares. 1924: Bührle is sent to Zurich to modernise the Oerlikon factory. He buys the patent for a canon, which will be developed as part of the secret ‘rearmament’ of Germany, whose armament industry has been forbidden by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.

1929: Abandoning his initial plans, Bührle settles in Switzerland. 1937: Bührle acquires Swiss citizenship and moves to Zurich. He acquires his first works of art from galleries in Zurich and Lucerne: paintings by Corot and Courbet, as well as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.Bührle becomes the sole owner of the Oerlikon Bührle & Co machine-tool factory, which receives significant orders from France and Great Britain.

1939: Bührle meets Fritz Nathan—an art dealer from Munich who emigrated to Saint-Gall—, who advises him over the coming years. The Second World War breaks out. 1940: The German occupation of France puts an end to the deliveries to the French and British armies. In line with a new political strategy, the Swiss federal authorities encourage Bührle to deliver weapons and ammunition to Germany.

During the war, Bührle becomes very wealthy and acquires seventy-six works on the Swiss art market, and five from Wildenstein in Paris.

1941: Bührle promises to make a donation of two million Swiss francs to construct an exten-sion on the Kunsthaus (fine arts museum) in Zurich. 1945: At the end of the war, Bührle’s factory is on the Allies’ ‘blacklist’. And the department in charge of recovering works of art confiscated by the Nazis finds thirteen in Bührle’s residence.

EMIL BÜHRLE AND HIS COLLECTION: KEY DATES


1946: Bührle buys paintings from the Dutch golden age, including three works attributed to Rembrandt and a portrait of Frans Hals 1948: The Swiss Federal Tribunal orders seventy-seven works of art confiscated in France and transferred to Switzerland to be returned to their rightful owners. Bührle returns the thirteen works identified in his home. He buys nine of them from their owners, including the art dealer Paul Rosenberg.

Bührle acquires Cézanne’s Garçon au gilet rouge (Boy in a Red Waistcoat). He hires a secretary to systematically compile information about the provenance of the works of art he acquires.

1949: Bührle buys Renoir’s La petite Irène (Little Irene) from Irène Sampieri-Camondo, née Cahen d’Anvers, in Paris. 1950: In the years following the end of the war, Bührle acquires fewer works of art, but his acquisitions are significant, and include Manet’s famous Port de Bordeaux, bought from his friend Paul Rosenberg.

1951: Having become a highly diversified international industrial group, Bührle’s company produces supplies for the United States army, NATO, and the Swiss army. In February, the last acquisition of recovered artworks is made. In June, Bührle wins his case against the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne, which had sold him looted works. The Federal Tri-bunal acknowledges the collector’s ‘good faith’ and condemns Fischer to reimburse the purchase prices. In August, Bührle visits Claude Monet’s studio in Giverny and buys large-format Nymphéas from the artist’s son. He gives the panel to Zurich’s Kunsthaus to decorate the new extension he has financed.As of 1951, Bührle intensifies his acquisitions, buying a hundred paintings and sculptures each year. Aside from Paul Rosenberg, the limited circle of art dealers he frequents includes Germain Seligmann and Georges Wildenstein in New York, Max Kaganovitch in Paris, Frank Lloyd and Arthur Kauffmann in London, and Walter Feilchenfeldt and Fritz Nathan in Zurich.

1952: During a retrospective in the Kunsthaus in Zurich, Bührle buys three more Nymphéas (Water Lilies) by Claude Monet, one of which he gives to the Kunsthaus. Bührle is the second collector in the world to buy the Grandes Décorations, which had remained in the studio at Giverny after the artist’s death.The first ‘Prix Buhrle’ competition is held in Paris, organised by the Galerie Max Kaganovitch. The competition is held again in 1953.


1953: Bührle visits the Picasso exhibition in Milan. He changes his mind—until then he has been reticent—about the artist. 1954 : Bührle gives a conference at the University of Zurich entitled ‘the origin of my collection’, in which he presents the principles of art history that helped him make his choices.

28 november 1956: Emil Georg Bührle dies in Zurich, at the age of sixty-six. He leaves no ins-tructions with regard to his collection.

1958: The exhibition room in the Kunsthaus in Zurich, which was built with the donations from Bührle, is inaugurated with the presentation of a large part of his collection. More limited exhibitions are held in Munich and Berlin in the following months.

1960: Emil Bührle’s widow and his two children establish the Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection in Zurich. They bequeath around 200 paintings, pastels, and sculptures—representing a third of the collector’s artworks—to the Foundation. The remainder goes to the heirs. The Foundation’s collection is held in the house next door to the collector’s residence. The villa is transformed into a private museum, which is opened to the general public.

1990-1991: To mark the collector’s hundredth anniversary, eighty-five masterpieces from the Foundation and the private part of the collection are exhibited on an international tour.

2008: Four of the collection’s masterpieces are stolen during an armed robbery. Two of the paintings are quickly recovered, and the others are found in 2012 in Belgrade. Henceforth, the general public’s access to the private museum is restricted. 2012: An agreement is signed between Zurich’s Kunsthaus and the Bührle Foundation; it re-lates to the long-term loan of works in the Emil Bührle Collection to the Kunsthaus.

2016: The Foundation is enriched with ten major works thanks to a bequest from the collec-tor’s son, Dieter Bührle.

2017: The Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne exhibits fifty-five works from the Emil Bührle Collection.

2018: Sixty-four works from the Emil Bührle Collection are exhibited in the National Art Centre in Tokyo, in the Kyushu National Museum, and in Nagoya, attracting 780,000 visitors.

2019: The Musée Maillol will exhibit sixty works in the first ever exhibition of the Emil Bührle Collection in France.


THE LOOTED AND ‘FLIGHT’ WORKS OF ART IN THE EMIL BÜHRLE COLLECTION

The room 3 of the exhibition in the Musée Maillol contains documents from the Bührle Foundation’s archives, which provide information about the provenance of various works, which underwent a particularly difficult period due to the events of the Second World War.

The works of art looted in France during the Second World War At the end of the war, in 1945, British Monuments officer Douglas Cooper, entrusted by the Allies with recovering works of art which had been confiscated by the German authorities in occupied France and transferred to Switzerland, identified seventy-seven works in the possession of various art dealers and collectors, including thirteen in Emil Bührle’s collection. In 1948, these works were the subject of a number of legal cases before the Chamber of Looted Assets in the Swiss Federal Tribunal, established by the Decree of the Federal Council of 10 December 1945. The court ruled that the confiscations that had taken place in France were illegitimate and described the works in question as ‘looted artworks’. In accordance with exceptional legislation, this decision ordered immediate restitution, even when the works had been acquired in good faith.Immediately after the court case, Emil Bührle offered to buy the works from the owners, who were identified by the court. Three of the five owners accepted this proposition and nine works were added to the Emil Bührle Collection, sometimes after lengthy exchanges of correspondence due to difficulties relating to inheritance. The four works that were not available for acquisition were restituted to their rightful owners. There are currently seven looted works of art (in 1941) in the Emil Bührle Collection. Bührle initially acquired them from the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne (in 1942); they were legally restituted to their rightful owners (in 1948) and then reacquired (between 1948 and 1951). Four pictures displayed in this exhibition are looted artworks: Camille Corot’s Young Girl Reading, Alfred Sisley’s Summer at Bougival, and Edgar Degas’s Before the Start and Dancers in the Foyer, which were restituted and reacquired from Paul Rosenberg and the heirs of Moise Levy de Benzion and Alphonse Kann respectively.In 1948, the court cases relating to looted artworks represented but a fraction of the cases heard by the Chamber of Looted Assets in the Swiss Federal Tribunal. Most of the cases related to shares and shareholdings, which were restituted to their rightful owners. They were reintegrated into the normal course of business following their restitution (sales, reinvestment, divisions of inheritance, etc.) and are no longer identifiable, unlike the works of art, which are objects of historical importance. The Bührle Foundation contributed to this memorialisation process and published research on the history of the Emil Bührle Collection, taking into account the fact that the collection was mainly compiled during the ten years after the end of the war, a period during which the looted works of art, once recovered by their owners, were legally back on the art market.


The ‘flight’ works of artUnlike the term ‘looted art’, which has a clear legal basis, there is no precise definition of the notion of ‘flight artworks’. The term was first used in the volume of research written by Esther Tisa, Anja Heuss, and Georg Kreis, Fluchtgut – Raubgut. Der Transfer von Kulturgütern in und über die Schweiz 1933–45 und die Frage der Restitution (‘Flight assets, looted assets: the transfer of cultural assets to and through Switzerland from 1933 to 1945 and the problem of restitution’) (Zurich, 2001), which was part of a series of volumes of research edited by the Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland – Second World War, which was established in 1996 by the Swiss Federal Assembly (the Bergier Report). A ‘flight asset’, when applied to art, refers to ‘cultural assets that were transferred to Switzerland by their rightful owners or at their request, with the aim of placing them in safety before they could be seized by the German authorities’.The works in the Emil Bührle Collection that correspond to this definition in the strict sense are those that Emil Bührle acquired between 1933 and the end of the war, which were of German origin and sent to Switzerland during this period. Out of the 203 works that are currently in the Emil Bührle Collection, nineteen were acquired between March 1937 and May 1945. Amongst these works, three fall into the category of ‘flight artwork’ based on current knowledge, while eight can be unequivocally excluded. Emil Bührle did not acquire the works directly from the owners between March 1937 and May 1945, but all the works in the collection that were acquired during this period were acquired on the normal Swiss art market. It is also the case that, in the post-war period, no claim for unfairly taking advantage of the vendors—resulting from sales made under pressure—was made against Emil Bührle.Extensive historical research has been conducted on the Emil Bührle Collection for seventeen years, and the Bührle Collection publishes the provenance of all the works on its Internet site, which is continually updated. This approach is part of a vast international research project devoted to the history of the works between 1933 and 1945, in which Switzerland has actively participated since 1998.

For further information on the complete inventory of the 633 acquisitions of works of art by Emil Bührle, including the works that remained in private hands when the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection was established in 1960, please visit: www.buehrle.ch.


THE EMIL BÜHRLE COLLECTION – THE WORKS THAT WERE RESPECTIVELY RESTITUTED AND REACQUIRED

*Corot, Young Girl Reading ***

*Degas, Before the Start***

Manet, Flowers

Pissarro, The Port of Rouen

Degas, Two Nudes

Matisse, Dancer

PAUL ROSENBERG, NEW YORK INITIAL RESTITUTED** REACQUIREDACQUISITION20/08/1942 03/06/1948 30/06/1948

18/04/1942 03/06/1948 21/06/1949

18/04/1942 03/06/1948 18/08/1948

15/09/1943 03/06/1948 18/08/1948

20/08/1942 03/06/1948 ----------------

18/12/1942 03/06/1948 ----------------

ALPHONSE KANN, LONDON

*Degas, Mme Camus

*Degas, Dancers***

*Manet, The Toilet

03/02/1942 05/07/1948 03/02/1951

03/02/1942 05/07/1948 03/02/1951

18/04/1942 05/07/1948 03/02/1951

INITIAL RESTITUTED ** REACQUIREDACQUISITION TO A.KANN FROM A.K.’S HEIRS

MOÏSE LÉVI DE BENZION, CAIRO

*Corot, Sitting Monk, Reading

*Sisley, Summer at Bougival***

03/02/1942 15/12/1948 03/07/1950

03/02/1942 15/12/1948 31/05/1950

INITIAL RESTITUTED ** REACQUIREDACQUISITION FROM LDB’S HEIRS FROM LDB’S HEIRS

ALEXANDRINE ROTHSCHILD, PARIS

Van Gogh, Landscape 18/04/1942 05/07/1948

ACQUIRED RESTITUTED**

ALFRED LINDON, PARIS

Picasso, Dames 22/08/1944 15/12/1948

ACQUIRED RESTITUTED**

* = In the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection since 1960; the others remained the property of the heirs.** = Date of the judgement of the ‘judicial panel adjudicating on cases relating to looted assets’ in the Swiss Federal Tribunal, or the date of the investigating judge’s ruling.*** = Work displayed in the exhibition ‘La Collection Emil Bührle’ in the Musée Maillol.


Alfred Sisley, Été à Bougival, (Summer at Bougival) 1876, oil on canvas, 47 x 62 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)


THE EXHIBITION TEAM

CURATORSHIP

REALISATION AND PRODUCTION

Lukas Gloor Born in 1952 in Basel, Lukas Gloor is an art historian and specialist in twentieth-century European painting. His work focuses mainly on the private collections that existed during the time. Since 2002, he has been the director of the Foundation and E. G. Bührle Collection in Zurich. He worked at the Swiss Institute for Art Research , Zurich and as cultural attaché in Switzerland, as well as at the Consulate General in New York. He has worked for various museums, including Basel’s Kunstmuseum, the Oskar Reinhart Museum in Winterthur, the Segantini Museum in Saint-Moritz, and other Swiss and foreign museums, as well as for various foundations, including the Oskar Kokoschka Foundation and the Werner Coninx Foundation.

Milly Passigli, Director delegate of programming, Agnès Wolff, Director of Cultural Production, Federica Fruttero, Exhibition Manager at the Musée Maillol, Hélène Sarreau et Margot Giusiano, Exhibition Registrar at the Musée Maillol, and Livia Lérès, who is responsible for iconography at Culturespaces.

SCENOGRAPHY

Hubert le Gall is a French designer, scenographer, artist, and contemporary art sculptor. Since 2000, he has been creating original scenographies for numerous exhibitions, including the Musée Maillol with 21 rue La Boétie (2017), Pop Art, icons that matter (2018) or Foujita, painting in the roaring twenties (2018).


THE MUSÉE MAILLOL - FONDATION DINA VIERNY

The Musée Maillol is steeped in history. Throughout the Middle Ages and up to the Renaissance, the land on which the Museum now stands had not yet been built on, and was part of a vast property belonging to a Benedictine Abbey founded in 543. In 1739, the nuns of the Couvent des Récollettes graciously allowed the city to build a monumental fountain at the heart of the district. Edme Bouchardon, sculptor of the King, created the majestic fountain of the Four Seasons which forms a magnificent forestage to the facade of the museum, and was built between 1739 and 1745 to the glory of the City of Paris. The ensemble was listed as a historic monument in 1862.

During the Revolution, the convent was closed and sold at auction. The different buildings were then owned by individual owners. In the 19th century, it was home to many famous figures, including the poet Alfred de Musset whose apartment was located on the first floor. Painter Paul Jacques Aimé Baudry, a member of the Institut de France, occupied the large studio for a long period. This studio space was conserved during the renovation works of the museum. Opening onto the second floor it houses Maillol’s life-size sculptures. In 1951, the Prévert brothers opened a cabaret here, known as La Fontaine des Quatre Saisons, in the large columned exhibition hall on the ground floor. Boris Vian, was a regular, and penned Le Déserteur here; Francis Blanche presented his Frères Jacques sketches, and Yves Montand performed the poems of Prévert, set to music by Kosma. A plethora of young artists all started out here: Maurice Béjart, Guy Bedos, Pierre Perret, Jean Yanne, Philippe Clay, Jacques Dufilho, etc.

In 1955, Dina Vierny, the sculptor’s model and collaborator, purchased and lived in an apartment in the building. Then, little by little, over the course of some twenty or so years, she managed to purchase all of the buildings. Following some fifteen years of renovation and construction work, under the eye of architect Pierre Devinoy, who had studied under Auguste Perret, the much anticipated institution was born that would house the works of Maillol.

The Musée Maillol opened its doors on 20 January 1995. Today, it presents the largest collection of the artist’s works to the public and presents a complete overview of Maillol’s creation, not just his sculpture, but also his paintings, drawings, ceramics and tapestry.

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CULTURESPACES, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF THE EXHIBITION

With more than twenty-eight years of experience and four million visitors a year, Culturespaces—founded in 1990 by Bruno Monnier—is the leading private operator in the management and promotion of monuments, museums, and art centres. Since 2012, Culturespaces is also one pioneer in the creation of digital art centres and immersive digital exhibitions.

Sites promoted and managed by Culturespaces:- the Atelier des Lumières (en 2018),- the Musée Maillol, Paris (since 2016),- the Hôtel de Caumont - Art Centre, Aix-en-Provence (since 2015),- the Carrières de Lumières, Les Baux-de-Provence (since 2012),- the Maison Carrée, the Tour Magne and Nîmes Amphitheatre (since 2006),- the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and the Antique Theatre in Orange (since 2002), - the Cité de l’Automobile, Mulhouse (since 1999),- the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris (since 1996), - the Castle of 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 ensures the highest standards for the reception of the general public and its venues are open seven days a week; it offers visitors free audio guides, applications, Wi-Fi, and activity books, as well as discounted admission prices for families, young persons, and the elderly.

The Fondation Dina Vierny has chosen to entrust Culturespaces with the temporary exhibitions at the Musée Maillol in Paris. Olivier Lorquin, president of the Musée Maillol, and Bruno Monnier, president of Culturespaces, signed a partnership agreement in October 2015 regarding the management of the museum and its cultural programming. This programming will showcase modern and contemporary art, thereby respecting the wishes of the founder of the Musée Maillol, Dina Vierny. With two large exhibitions per year (in the spring and in the autumn), the programme will highlight some of the different artistic currents from the 20th to the 21st century, and is open to all forms of expression (painting, sculpture, photography, illustration, video and installation art).

Without forgetting Aristide Maillol, his friends and modernity, and his muse, Dina Vierny, whose collections of artworks will enter into a dialogue with the temporary exhibitions. www.culturespaces.com


Cultural and artistic awareness for vulnerable children

Since 2009, the Culturespaces Foundation has enabled children who are made vulnerable by illness, or suffer from a handicap or social exclusion to have unique artistic and cultural experiences so that they can be stimulated and develop and fulfil themselves. To help children express their creativity, the Culturespaces Foundation creates educational programmes that are suitable for children and implemented in schools in high-priority educational networks, social organisations, paediatric hospitals, and homes for children with disabilities.

ABOUT THE CULTURESPACES FOUNDATION

Entertaining and interactive experiences are available in nine exceptional cultural establishments: The Musée Maillol in Paris, the Nîmes Amphitheatre, the Castle of Les Baux-de-Provence, the Carrières de Lumières at Les Baux-de-Provence, the Antique Theatre in Orange, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the Cité de l’Automobile in Mulhouse, the Atelier des Lumières in Paris, and the Hôtel de Caumont in Aix-in-Provence.

Over the last ten years, the Culturespaces Foundation’s work

has benefitted:

16 000 children560 educational workshops

970 site visitsMore than 500 social organisations

75 % of the children visited a cultural site for the first time.

By raising awareness about culture, art, and the national 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 cultural and artistic awareness for vulnerable children.

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VISUALS AVAILABLE FOR THE PRESS

1. Eugène Delacroix, Apollon vainqueur du serpent Python, vers 1853, huile sur toile, 110 x 99,5 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

2. Edouard Manet, Un Coin du jardin de Bellevue, 1880, huile sur toile, 91 x 70 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 3. Paul Cézanne, Portrait de l'artiste à la palette, vers 1890, huile sur toile, 92 x 73 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 4. Paul Cézanne, Le Jardinier Vallier, vers 1904-1906, huile sur toile, 65 x 54 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 5. Claude Monet, Champ de coquelicots près de Vétheuil, vers 1879, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cm, Legs Dr. Dieter Bührle Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 6. Amedeo Modigliani, Nu couché, 1916, huile sur toile, 65,5 x 87 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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7. Vincent van Gogh, Les Ponts d'Asnières, 1887, huile sur toile, 53,5 x 67 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

8. Vincent van Gogh, Branches de marronniers en fleur, 1890, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 9. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait de Mademoiselle Irène Cahen d'Anvers (La petite Irène), 1880, huile sur toile, 65 x 54 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 10. Vincent Van Gogh, Le semeur, soleil couchant, 1888, huile sur toile, 73 x 92 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 11. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Messaline, 1901, huile sur toile, 92 x 68 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

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12. Edgar Degas, Danseuses au foyer, vers 1889, huile sur toile, 41,5 x 92 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 13. Pablo Picasso, Nature morte avec fleurs et citrons, 1941, huile sur toile, 92 x 73 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) © Succession Picasso, 2019 14. Edgar Degas, Ludovic Lepic et ses filles, vers 1871, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

15. Edouard Manet, Le Suicidé, vers 1877, huile sur toile, 38 x 46 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 16. Paul Cézanne, Le Garçon au gilet rouge, 1888-1890 Huile sur toile, 79,5 x 64 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

17. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Au lit, 1892, gouache sur carton, 53 x 34 cm, Legs Dr. Dieter Bührle Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © Dominic Büttner, Zurich

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The mention © Succession Picasso 2018 is obligatory for any reproduction of Picasso’s images.It is strictly forbidden to reframe, cut, superimpose, or alter reproductions of Pablo Picasso’s works.If you wish to reproduce an image in a format larger than 1/4 of a page, please contact Picasso Administratio: Elodie de Almeida Satan - [email protected]


18. Raoul Dufy, La Fête foraine, vers 1906, huile sur toile, 54 x 65 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) © Adagp, Paris 2019 19. Edouard Vuillard, Le Numéro d’illusionniste, vers 1895, huile sur carton, 49 x 39 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 20. Alfred Sisley, Été à Bougival, 1876, huile sur toile, 47 x 62 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 21. Aelbert Cuyp, Orage sur Dordrecht, vers 1645, huile sur toile, 77,5 x 107 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn) 22. Edouard Manet, Les Hirondelles, 1873, huile sur toile, 65 x 81 cm Collection Emil Bührle, Zurich © SIK-ISEA, Zurich (J.-P. Kuhn)

23. Emil Bührle et sa collection, 1954 Photographie de Dmitri Kessel pour LIFE © Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty images

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THE CATALOGUE

To complement this exhibition, an illustrated 192-page paperback catalogue published by Gallimard, is on sale in the Musée Maillol’s cultural gift shop at a price of €30 and online on www.boutique-culturespaces.com.

THE SPECIAL EDITION OF BEAUX ARTS MAGAZINE

A special edition of Beaux-Arts Magazine of 44 pages explores the Collection. For sale in the cultural gift shop in the Musée Maillol for €9. 50 and online on www.boutique-culturespaces.com.

THE GUIDED TOUR FOR SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS

An audio guide presenting a selection of major works is available in both French and English. Cost : €2,99

THE GUIDE AUDIO

An audio guide with a selection of major works is available in two languages (French and English) at a cost of €3.

FOR YOUNGER VISITORS: GAMES-BOOKLET

Provided free of charge to our younger visitors (aged 7-12 years), this booklet serves as a guide, allowing children to experience and enjoy the exhibition through a variety of fun games and puzzles.

AROUND THE EXHIBITION


ADDRESS 61 rue de Grenelle75007 ParisTel : +33(0)1 42 22 57 25Métro : Rue du Bac, ligne 12.Bus n° 63, 68, 69, 83 et 84.

OPENING TIMES The museum is open every day for the duration of its temporary exhibitions, from 10.30am to 6.30pm.

Late night opening on Fridays until 8.30pm.

RATES Full rate : € 13.5 Reduced rate: € 11.5 Senior rate : € 12.5 Youth rate : € 9.5 Family rate : € 40 (for 2 adults and 2 young aged 7 to 25).Free admission for children under 7 years old and holders of an ICOM card.

PRESS CONTACT Christelle Maureau, Claudine Colin Communication [email protected] Tel : +33 (0)1 42 72 60 01Port. : +33 (0)6 45 71 58 92

WEB www.museemaillol.com #CollectionBuhrle

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

PARTNERS

59/61 rue de Grenelle - 75007 ParisOpen every day for the duration of its temporary exhibitions, from 10.30 am to 6.30 pm.Late opening on Fridays until 8.30 pm.

www.museemaillol.com #CollectionBührle

PRESS CONTACTCLAUDINE COLIN COMMUNICATIONChristelle [email protected]. +33 (0)1 42 72 60 01

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press kit - culturespaces · corot, van gogh, and cézanne, was soon compiled and formed the heart...

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