Paintings from Afar

Content

For the first time, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac is exhibiting a large selection of paintings, drawings and lacquer paintings where Ange Tissier’s odalisque is set alongside George Catlin’s portraits of American Indians, and Émile Bernard’s scenes of daily life in Cairo can be seen alongside prints and drawings of Tahiti by Matisse and Gauguin. Even so, most of the works have yet to be discovered by the public.
The museum’s collection of over 500 paintings and painted decorations was inherited from the musée national des arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie in the Palais de la Porte Dorée. Not only do Africa, Indochina and the Middle East provide the backdrops for these artworks produced during colonial times, but the Americas and the Pacific too. By drawing on these specific historical contexts, they reveal the artists’ sources of inspiration, and so exotic and fantasy visions, ethnographic perspectives and imperialist propaganda from the late 18th century to the mid 20th century, occur throughout these works.

DESCRIPTION

24 x 30 cm • 272 pages • €45
Joint publication Skira Paris / musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac
Paris, 2018
ISBN: 9782370740717