Padua prepares to host spectacular art exhibition this autumn

 PADUA - An extraordinary art collection from one of the most important museums in Northern Europe and France will be at the heart of a new major exhibition in Palazzo Zabarella, Padova, this autumn, set to sent art fanatics crazy.

 As part of the dialogue initiated by the Bano Foundation in recent years with internationally renowned museum institutions, it is now the turn of the LaM, Lille Métropole Musée d’art modern, d’art contemporain et d’art brut to give visitors the opportunity to admire 65 works by 30 avant-garde artists in a major exhibition.

 The protagonists of the historical avant-garde and the most famous artists will be joined by others, opening up new artistic scenarios that are closer to the present. Among the numerous masterpieces are five paintings by Pablo Picasso and six by Amedeo Modigliani.

 The creation of the LaM museum, located on Villenueve d’Ascq, a spot in the metropolitan area of Lille, occurred in 1983, related to the legacy of Genevieve (1922-2003) and Jean Masurel (1908-1991), members of a famous textile product family in the north of France.

 The donation comprised of the works acquired by Jean Masurel and those left to him by his uncle Roger Dutilleul (1872-1956), and industrialist and a lover of art and one of the most important collectors of Modigliani. In the time between the first years of the 20^th century and the 1970’s, Dutilleul and his nephew Masurel formed an amazing collection, very personal and at the same time representative of the main artistic movements of the first half of the 20th century in France.

 Since then, the LaM became a key institution in the European cultural scene and it further enriched itself in 1999 with a donation of another 3,500 works of art brut on behalf of the L’Aracine association – founded by Madeleine Lommel, Claire Teller and Michel Nedjar – and thus becoming the Lille Métropole Musée d’art modern, d’art contemporain et d’art brut.

 With a collection of over 8,500 artworks, the LaM is the first French museum to unite these artistic periods offering a unique view of the art of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

 Roger Dutilleul began to collect works of art in 1904 and would then never stop until his death in 1956. Described by the gallery owner Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler as a "deeply nice and estimable man ... in the tradition of great art lovers," he seems to have had a very instinctive approach towards painting, showing his sensitivity towards colour and favouring the sincerity of the work.

 Dutilleul said he had "no belief" nor "dogma a priori" on art, observing: "The most important thing is that the painting looks at you. It is not up to the amateur to look at it - especially with preconceived ideas or feelings - he must settle for seeing him, that is to say to cross his gaze with it, to understand the thought of the artist or, better still, his deepest, intimate emotion. As best as they can!"

 After acquiring some Fauvisti works, he was struck by the painting of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, becoming one of the first supporters and collectors of Cubist art. Following the taste of the gallery owner Kahnweiler, he also took care of Fernand Léger's "tube" paintings and Henri Laurens' research concerning Cubist sculpture.

 Jean Masurel, son of Roger Dutilleul's younger sister, Françoise Coltrotilulul, and of the Lana Jules-Paul Masurel merchant, grew up in the north of France and, in the early 1920s, was sent by his uncle to Paris to prepare for the baccalaureate. There he began to buy the first works of his collection.

 His tastes reflected those of his uncle, preferring the same artists: Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, André Bauchant and, later, Bernard Buffet. However, he also showed interest in abstract painting and supported local artists of northern France.

 Roger Dutilleul inherited most of his collection to his nephew Jean Masurel who, considering himself only the "custodian" of the common collection, decided to donate it to a public community. The metropolitan area of ​​Lille was chosen, where it came from, and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Villeneuve d'Ascq opened in 1983.

 As a lover of nature, Jean Masurel wanted the place to be surrounded by a park and open to contemporary art. This desire was the distinctive sign of the museum and brought in 1999 to the entrance of the donation of the exceptional collection of the Arakine Association including various works such as drawings, paintings, assemblies, objects and sculptures of over 170 French and foreign artists attributable to art brut.

 It was the artist Jean Dubuffet in 1945 who coined the concept of 'Art Brut', in a period in which he was starting to put together a highly eclectic art collection that showed his interest in works created under the influence of spirits, in psychiatric hospitals or by marginalized people and by the self -taught 'architects' who followed the example of Ferdinand Cheval.

 Today recognized as a key phenomenon of twentieth century art, art brut - in English "outsider art", has expanded and spread all over the world. It comes to bind itself to the interest and appreciation towards self -taught art expressed by Roger Dutilleul and Jean Masurel themselves.

 Curated by Jeanne-Bathilde Lacourt, curator for modern art at LaM, the exhibition is divided into six sections in which the visitor will discover in Padua a deepening on the Cubist avant-garde with the paintings of Picasso such as Pesce e Bottiglie (Fish and Bottles) from 1909, Donna con Cappello (Woman with a Hat), 1942, and also of Georges Braque, including La Roche-Guyon, from 1909 or Il Sacro Cuore di Montmartre (The Sacred Heart of Montmartre) of 1910, and to then consider Fernard Léger's "tubism", represented by six paintings.

 Further versions of Cubism will betestified by the pictorial works of Léopold Survage, Eugène Nestor de Kermadec, Francisco Borès and the polychrome stones of Henri Laurens. Authentic masterpieces of Amedeo Modigliani will be on show such as the portrait of Moïse Kisling, Ragazzo dei Capelli Rossi (A red -haired boy), Nudo Seduto con Camicia (Naked Sitting with a Shirt) and Maternita (Motherhood).

 Further, there will be movements and artistic avant-garde of the first and Second World War, such as Joan Miró, André Lanskoy, Youla Chapoval, Joaquín Torres-García, the works of Alexander Calder, and the stratified and material paintings of Eugène Leroy.

 Il Mazzo di Fiori (The Bunch of Flowers) by Séraphine de Senlis, Il Chiosco (The Kiosk) by Gertrude O'Brady, Composizione Decorativa (A Decorative Composition) by Augustin Lesage, and Dipinto Meraviglioso n. 35 (A Wonderful Painting n. 35) by Fleury Joseph Crépin, will discover the alternative routes of a 'self -taught' art, more spontaneous, instinctive, naive (just as these artists were defined), capable of expressing as much poetry as spirituality.

 Finally, one will be confronted with the real brut art through two granite sculptures by Antoine Rabany, which Dubuffet himself, present on display with his work Pane Filosofico (Philosophical Bread), had helped to make known, and a wooden sculpture from Augustan Forestier.

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