1 March 2018 – In the current major exhibition Les Hollandais à Paris, 1789–1914. Van Gogh, Van Dongen, Mondrian the Paris’ Petit Palais is presenting the French capital through the eyes and hearts of eight Dutch artists i.a. Vincent van Gogh, Kees van Dongen and Piet Mondrian. With the Van Gogh Museum, the RKD – Netherlands Institute for art History conducted research for this exhibition, resulting in important contributions to the catalogue and the digital research tool Mapping Artists.
The exhibition focuses on the inspiration that Dutch artists found in Paris through, for example, their contact with French colleagues, and the impact this had on their art. The Dutch in Paris 1789-1914 is a collaboration between the RKD, the Van Gogh Museum and Paris Musées / Petit Palais. Included in the display are more than 120 works, among them numerous loans from public as well as private collections around the world.
Dr. Leo Jansen and Wietse Coppes, editors of the Mondrian Edition Project, contributed to the catalogue with their essay: ‘Piet Mondrian – Cubism as a Catalyst: Mondrian’s Cautious Quest for the Universal’. In this essay Jansen and Coppes explore Mondrian’s relationship to French art, specifically his first ten-day trip to Paris in the Spring of 1911. This marked his first encounter with cubism at the Salon des Indépendants, that would soon prove to be a catalyst in Mondrian’s own search for a more universal form of art.
More information about Mondrian’s first stay in Paris and the works he exhibited there will be part of the first publication of The Mondrian Papers, that focusses on the letters Mondrian wrote between 1892 and the summer of 1919.
Les Hollandais à Paris will be on show at the Petit Palais till 13 May 2018.