French Art 1870-1925

The exhibition French Art 1870-1925 features both major works and hidden gems from the Glyptotek’s own collection.

Explore a selection of works from the Glyptotek’s outstanding Paul Gauguin collection. Or peruse a wide range of other major works by some of the most significant artists of the period – for example, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot.

Featuring mainly oil paintings, but also pastels and small marble, bronze and ceramic sculptures, the exhibition presents a rich and compelling story about the abundant variety, intensity and inventiveness in the art of the period.

In 1874, a group of Parisian artists decided to exhibit their works together in protest against their rejection by the Salon, the official exhibition venue.

The group, which would later become known as the ‘Impressionists’, included artists such as Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Together, they represented a brand new kind of painting, in which light and colour were the overriding elements.

They often worked outdoors, where they had the best opportunities to observe the fleeting light, colour and movement of the moment, be it a landscape or the bustle of urban life.

The characteristics of the style included thick layers of vibrant, unmixed colour pigments and unconventional cropping.

During the 1880s and 1890s, Europe witnessed a welter of artistic trends, either in dialogue with, or in opposition to Impressionism.

Painting should no longer be a reflection of the seen world and its phenomena. It was time for it to become an independent art form with its own, unique expressive possibilities. Edgar Degas – and later Paul Gauguin – was dedicated to transforming art into something more than just a depiction of things observed.

Vincent van Gogh’s expressive use of colours and oil paint pushed painting to a dramatic extreme, while Paul Cézanne, with his more intellectual approach, challenged the surface and volume of a painting. Pierre Bonnard painted intimate interior scenes with bold cropping, while Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso portrayed modern urban life.

European painting took many new directions, bolstered by a rapidly changing art market, in which the Salon, with its ultra-conservatism, no longer had a monopoly on the market or good taste.

After the death of Edgar Degas, more than 150 wax figures were found in his studio. With the exception of his sculpture, The Little Fourteen-year-old Dancer, he did not regard these wax figures as potential works of art. They were practice pieces. Degas used them to study the movement, balance and proportions of the body.

72 of them were cast in bronze by the artist’s descendants, and the Glyptotek is one of the few museums in the world to own a complete collection.

The exhibition displays a selection of Degas’ balancing ballerinas, women grooming themselves and horses either galloping or at rest.

Edgar Degas’ sculpture The Little Fourteen-year-old Dancer has been part of the Glyptotek’s French collection since 1949. The sculpture was originally made of painted wax, and exhibited with a tulle skirt around its waist, real human hair, silk ribbon, linen shoes and a cotton top. It was not until after Degas’ death that it was cast in bronze.

Until recently, the dancer wore an old faded skirt around her waist – so fragile that it needed to be replaced. There are 25 versions of the dancer in the world and, if you compare the skirts, they are all very different.

The museum chose to base its reconstruction of the skirt on existing knowledge about the appearance of the skirt when Degas exhibited the work at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881. In this exhibition, you can see the dancer’s new skirt and learn all about the conservation process and the research that went into it.

The Glyptotek Acquires Its First Graphic Work by Paul Gauguin

The Glyptotek has added a rare new work to its Gauguin collection: a hand-coloured lithograph of which only two copies are known to exist worldwide. It is the museum’s first graphic work by the French artist. Its subject – Black women working on Martinique – reveals a story of French colonial rule and a romanticised view of life under colonialism.

With the acquisition of The Grasshoppers and the Ants – A Memory from Martinique (1889), the Glyptotek opens a new chapter in its world-renowned Gauguin collection. Until now, the collection has comprised nearly 60 works spanning painting, ceramics, woodcarving and drawing—but no prints. The new work thus represents a lesser-known aspect of Paul Gauguin’s (1848–1903) artistic practice.

The lithograph is a proof from Gauguin’s first and only graphic series, the Volpini Suite. The series represented a turning point in the artist’s career, showcasing many of the qualities that came to characterise his style: brightly coloured and flat, starkly outlined and boldly composed. The work will play a key role in the Glyptotek’s presentation of Gauguin and his oeuvre to the public, illustrating the breadth of his experimentation. It will also serve as a point of departure for new research into the artist and into French art of the period.

Idealised colonialism

The Grasshoppers and the Ants – A Memory from Martinique was inspired by Gauguin’s stay on the former French colony of Martinique in 1887, where he supervised workers on a fruit plantation. Although slavery had been abolished, many locals continued to labour under harsh conditions – and it is these working women that Gauguin depicts.

The title refers to Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper who sings away the summer while the ants diligently prepare for winter. Gauguin may have used the fable to stage his scene: the working women as ants, the resting women as grasshoppers—all rendered as types within a romanticised portrayal.

The newly acquired work can be seen in the exhibition Gauguin & Kihara – First Impressions at the Glyptotek.

The acquisition has been made possible through the generous support of Aage and Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation and the New Carlsberg Foundation.