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6/2/2010

Henri Rousseau

Fondation Beyeler, Basel

The art of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) transcended traditional borderlines and entered untrodden territory. A customs official, Rousseau had no formal art training and initially painted in his free time. Many years passed before his art, non-academic and long considered merely naive, found recognition in the Paris salons. It was poets like Apollinaire and artists like Picasso, Léger, Delaunay, and later Kandinsky, who were the first to appreciate Rousseau’s outstanding significance.

On the centenary of his death, the Fondation Beyeler is devoting an exhibition to this pioneer of Classical Modern art, comprising about 40 masterworks. Viewers will discover Rousseau’s unusual portraits and the poetic paintings of French cities and landscapes in which he made visible the transition from the mundane to the mysterious. The exhibition culminates in a significant group of the artist’s famous jungle paintings. Although he had never actually seen a jungle, he created his own highly imaginative and colorful vision of it and its exotic denizens in his paintings. With his wonderful, often dreamlike compositions, Rousseau stood for the rediscovery of fantasy at the inception of modernism. He succeeded in opening new worlds for art, which influenced the Cubists and Surrealists and continue to excite art lovers young and old to this day.

Many renowned museums and collections in Europe and America have contributed to the success of the exhibition by their generous provision of loans, such as the National Gallery, London, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
A great number of pictures come from the Musée national de l’Orangerie, the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée national Picasso in Paris.

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue were conceived by Philippe Büttner, Curator at the Fondation Beyeler, in collaboration with Christopher Green, Professor emeritus for Art History at the Courtauld Institute, London. Green was co-curator of the exhibition "Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris," shown in 2005-06 at the Tate Modern, the Grand Palais, Paris, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The catalogue to the "Henri Rousseau" exhibition has been published by Hatje Cantz Verlag: 120 pages, 82 full-color illustrations, CHF 64.–

Events Programme:

Franz Hohler
Monkeys, Suns, Balloons - Literary Apercus to Henri Rousseau’s Paintings
(Reading in German)
Thursday, February 11, 2010, 7 pm

Jungle Scenes
Concert with Pierre Favre, Solo Percussionist
Thursday, March 11, 2010, 7.30 pm

Henri Rousseau Soiree
Curators Tour, Art & Dinner
Friday, March 5 and April 9, 2010, 6 – 9 pm

Press contact
Catherine Schott
Art Media Relations, Tel. +41 (0)61 6459721 Fax +41 (0)61 6459739 E-Mail: presse@beyeler.com

Fondation Beyeler
Baselstrasse 101, CH-4125 Riehen / Basel
Opening hours
Daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The museum is open on all sundays and holidays.
Wednesday, December 24 and 31, 2008, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m

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