Visages magiques – Gaston Chaissac & les autres

This year, the The Fontevraud Museum of Modern Art has chosen to present the works of Gaston Chaissac, a singular figure whose life is intimately linked to the Pays de la Loire region. At the crossroads of several fields of art —Modern and Contemporary art, Outsider art, Folk art—Chaissac was a humble but colourful figure, both a non-conformist intellectual and a craftsman who gave free rein to his hand, painting on a multitude of media ranging from the classic canvas to discarded objects, from paper to stone.

The exhibition, entitled Visages magiques, Gaston Chaissac & les autres (Magical Faces, Gaston Chaissac & the Others), is part of the museum’s ongoing project to bring together different art forms. The exhibition is primarily thematic, focusing on faces and masks, and has a particular resonance with the collection assembled by Martine and Léon Cligman, in which the human figure plays an essential role.

One of the original features of this exhibition is that it brings together works by Chaissac and major Modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Otto Freundlich and Jean Dubuffet, with non-Western artworks —many from the museum’s own collection— and ethnographic objects, as well as a counterpoint with paintings by Contemporary artist Romain Bernini. More than a retrospective of a single artist, Visages magiques is an exhibition of varied, surprising and enigmatic works, often encompassing a playful aspect.

Gaston Chaissac is a singular figure in the art world. Born in 1910 in the Morvan area, after marrying Camille Guibert in 1942 he moved to the Vendée region, where he spent the rest of his life, leaving only on rare occasions until his death in 1964 in La-Roche-sur-Yon. Following in the footsteps of his wife, a schoolteacher, he moved to Vix, then Boulogne and Saint-Florence-de-l’Oie, before returning to the Vendée marshes at Vix.

A large collection of works by Gaston Chaissac is held by the Musée des Sables d’Olonne (MASC, the largest public collection of works by the artist). His work is also shown in major national and international institutions, and has been the subject of numerous exhibitions (retrospectives at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1973; at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes in 1998; at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier in 1999; at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2000; at the Musée de Grenoble in 2009; and the Musée Soulages in Rodez in 2021).