When southern light influences art: first exhibition of a new Provencal museum

"In dormant for more than twenty years, the museum of Hyères created in 1883 will finally be reborn from its ashes in the light of a site worthy of a museum of France", is proud Jean-Pierre Giran, mayor of this city of 60.000 inhabitants, which was, before Cannes and Nice, a major holiday resort on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Acquired by the town hall in 2004, the 2.188 m2 building of neoclassical inspiration was transformed for nearly six million euros, under the leadership of the chief architect of historical monuments Alain-Charles Perrot, into a real exhibition space suitable for satisfying the many visitors to the leading tourist town in the Var.

Large windows, high ceilings, wooden stairs and steel railings, chiseled balconies, colored stained-glass windows, covered patio and large terrace, the cultural tool already has 8.000 works in its reserves accumulated over time, in particular thanks to Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit, painter and art historian, whose father, Emmanuel, author of a reference artistic dictionary, was close to the painters Van Gogh, Pissaro and Sisley.

Drawing on this background, "La Banque, musée des cultures et du paysage", has chosen to exhibit for three years on its first floor some 200 works expressing the history of Hyères and its landscapes over two millennia, by the academic painter of the second Empire Alexandre Cabanel to the street photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The paintings take the visitor from the salt flats to the peninsula of Giens but also through the history of the city, from the Greek colony of Olbia founded by Massalia (Marseille) until the XNUMXth century when Hyères hosted winter in its eight luxury hotels an English community, including Queen Victoria.

"Miniature of Picasso at 14"

In the basement, the architects have kept the old rooms of the Bank's vaults, an atypical space that can serve as an extension to exhibitions, places for consulting digital documentation or archiving.

However, it is on the ground floor of the building that the temporary exhibitions that will bring the museum to life will be installed. For its launch, the city called on the art historian, Dominique Lobstein. "My idea was to compare the work, between 1850 and 1950, of local artists with that of artists, often Parisians, who came to settle or stay in the region after the opening of the PLM line (Paris-Lyon- Marseille) in the 1850s. This train will allow them to discover the light of the South ", explains the curator of the exhibition which will last until March 27, 2022.

"If at the beginning, they do nothing, little by little, many will integrate a new way of painting. After the appearance of photography, some will move away from the naturalist representation in favor of a more inventive work. , unstructured where the light will exist in the colors and the way of juxtaposing them ", he explains.

On loan from the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Center Pompidou or by collectors, nearly 70 works illustrate this evolution of the eyes of painters under the light of the South.

Among the works of the most famous artists are two Picassos, one of which, a miniature representing the port of Valencia (eastern Spain), was painted when he was only 14 years old. There are also canvases by Eugène Boudin, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Signac, Auguste Renoir, Raoul Dufy, Francis Picabia and Marc Chagall.

Among the local artists exhibited, Paul Guigou, Emile Loubron or Prosper Grésy, some have never left their region but others have made a career in Paris where the light that floods their canvas has intrigued critics and painters. At the end of the XNUMXth century and in the footsteps of Paul Signac and Auguste Renoir, the shores of the Mediterranean will become a laboratory for plastic experimentation in modern art.