Miserere exhibition
The opening of the Miserere exhibition, Georges Rouault’s masterpiece, will take place at the abbey of La Celle, in the Var.
Exhibition from May 13 to September 17, 2023
Free admission
The abbey of La Celle hosts a set of 58 engravings of exceptional quality, forming the album known as Miserere, masterpiece of the painter Georges Rouault (1871-1958) which was exhibited in the greatest museums world and contributed to its international fame. This masterpiece is part of the collection of the Fondation des Treilles, put together by its founder, Anne Gruner Schlumberger. In a spirit of sharing that was hers, she decided that her collection could be the subject of traveling exhibitions.
Georges Rouault, and his contemporary Henri Matisse, frequented the famous studio of Gustave Moreau in his time, where the generation that gave birth to Fauvism was formed. Both critics and art historians, for convenience, classify it under this banner. The affirmation of expression through color, the forms outlined in black, the subjects chosen from among the most humble, prostitutes, clowns, have also made him considered as one of the figures of French expressionism. He was above all a deeply original artist, who followed his path, without worrying about fashions and currents, listening to his deepest convictions revealed by the work Miserere and which still today make Georges Rouault one of the most important representatives of sacred art of the 20th century.
Artists’ books, albums with prestigious signatures, such as that of Georges Rouault constitute the most secret and fragile part of this collection. They are, for conservation reasons, rarely exhibited. The Fondation des Treilles welcomed the project of this exhibition with the certainty that in these walls once built for silence, the work Miserere would find a marvelous space for dialogue.