This is London October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 24
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PAINTING THE FRENCH RIVIERA
In October, the Royal Academy of Arts
will present Painting the French Riviera,
a major exhibition exploring the rise and
development of modern art on the
Mediterranean coast of France from the
1870s to the 1960s. Bringing together
over 120 paintings, sculptures and
drawings, as well as film, books and
travel posters, the exhibition will
examine how artists including Claude
Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe
Morisot, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso
and Yves Klein found inexhaustible
inspiration in the brilliant light, azure
skies and luminous sea in the unspoilt
Eden that was the South of France.
Spanning nearly 90 years, the exhibition
will trace the transformation of the
Mediterranean coast into one of the
defining landscapes of modern art.
More than simply a place of retreat,
the Riviera came to symbolise an ideal
of artistic and spiritual renewal, inspiring
artists to develop bold new ways of
representing their surroundings.
Painting the French Riviera will focus on
key moments and figures that made
significant contributions to the history of
modern art. Works by Cézanne, Renoir
and Morisot will explore this early
fascination with the region, while a
dedicated gallery will focus on Monet’s
visits to the South of France in the
1880s, including his depictions of the
landscapes at Bordighera and Cap
Martin and later Antibes.
The exhibition will feature works by
the Neo-Impressionists Paul Signac,
Henri-Edmond Cross and Théo van
Rysselberghe, whose pointillist
technique was ideally suited to capturing
the scintillating southern light. For these
artists, the South of France represented
not only visual inspiration but also a
utopian ideal, associated with artistic
freedom and social progress.
A further section will explore the
Fauves, led by Matisse and including
André Derain and Georges Braque, who
between 1905 and 1908 revolutionised
painting through their complete
liberation of colour for expressive
purposes.
Pierre Bonnard will feature
prominently, with an entire gallery
devoted to his radiant Mediterranean
paintings made between 1904 and his
death in 1947, particularly those
produced after he settled at Le Cannet
above Cannes in 1926.
Picasso’s long relationship with the
Riviera will also be examined through
works spanning several decades from
the 1920s through the early 1960s. Still
Life with Mandolin, 1924 (National
Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) reveals his
post-World War One shift toward a
decorative, brighter style that departed
from his earlier Analytic Cubist style. A
suite of watercolours made in 1933
reflect Picasso’s deep connection to the
region and its associations with
mythology, antiquity and leisure.
www.royalacademy.org.uk
Pierre Bonnard, The Gate of the Villa du
Bosquet in Le Cannet, 1944. Oil on
canvas, 61.6 x 49.8 cm. Loan courtesy of
the Muskegon Museum of Art, Gift of the L.C.
and Margaret Walker Foundation
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