Van Gogh never went to Japan. He created his own image of the country thanks to the Japanese prints he eagerly collected and closely studied. The colourful and exotic images greatly inspired him.

Van Gogh started to copy Japanese prints to better understand them. Doing so, he developed a 'Japanese eye' that would give his work a new direction. What was this Japanese way of looking? Discover more in the exhibition Van Gogh & Japan.

Van Gogh fell under the spell of Japanese printmaking in Paris, where he quickly purchased over 600 prints from a dealer. He hung them in his studio, so he could gradually absorb the influence of these colourful works. More than 100 Japanese prints from his collection are on view in the exhibition.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
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Keynote speakers:

Professor Robin Jeffrey (National University of Singapore)
Dr Lucie Ryzova (University of Birmingham)
Graham Shaw (University of London, ex-British Library)
Professor Ulrike Stark (University of Chicago)

DAY 1 • Thursday, 28 June 2018

1100–1140 Registration & refreshments
1145–1200 Introduction

1200–1230
Lucie Ryzova (University of Birmingham, UK)
Free floating words: the social landscapes of print in colonial Egypt

1230–1250
Niki Sioki (University of Nicosia, Cyprus)
Neighbours on paper: multilingual documents and multi-script printing in late 19th and early 20th century Cyprus

1300–1400 Lunch

1400–1420
Naïma Ben Ayed (Dalton Maag Ltd, UK)
Maghreban specificities, past and present: a closer look at typography and calligraphic heritage in the Maghreb

1430–1450
Gerry Leonidas (University of Reading, UK)
Themes in the globalisation of typeface design

1500–1515 Break

1515–1525
Arina Stonescu (Lund University, Sweden)
Communist typography in Romania 1948–1989: the education of typographers during the communist time and its legacy

1530–1540
Eliza Deac (Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania)
Shaping the visual identity of Modernist poetry: the role of typographical layout in French & Romanian Symbolist poems

1545–1555
Guglielmo Rossi (Royal College of Art, UK)
The collective production of radical politics in print, London in the 1970s

1615–1630 Break

1630–1650
Tobias Klein (Humboldt University, Germany)
Tones and characters: towards a comparative study of musical letter notation

1700–1720
Jesús Barrientos (University of Puebla, Mexico)
The Renaissance letters of Mesoamerican scribes in sixteenth century New Spain

1730–1800
Graham Shaw (University of London, UK)
The iconography of the Indian freedom movement: the Japanese dimension

1800–1815 Closing remarks

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DAY 2 • Friday, 29 June 2018

1030–1120 Registration & refreshments

1130–1200
Robin Jeffrey (National University of Singapore)
Printing in India: technology, commerce and turning points – puzzles and possibilities

1200–1220
Wafi Momin (Institute of Ismaili Studies, UK)
From manuscripts to printed texts: the evolution of Khojki script and literary production

1230–1250
Fiona Ross (University of Reading, UK)
The analysis of printed characters: reflections on typographic history and textual representation

1300–1400 Lunch

1400–1420
Vivien Chan (Nottingham Trent University, UK)
Colour and lights: the politics of traditional Chinese script in Hong Kong’s urban landscape

1430–1450
Ritika Prasad (University of North Carolina, USA)
Wheeler booksellers: railways and reading in colonial India

1500–1515 Break

1515–1525
Marta Dos Santos (LCC/School of Oriental & African Studies, UK)
Printing for salvation: the production of the morality book Yuli Chao Chuan Jingshi as a hell-avoiding strategy in late imperial China

1530–1540
Pouran Lashini (University of Dallas, USA)
Early Iranian printing through various writing systems and artefacts

1545–1555
Svenja Michel (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Changes in book art: images in Books of Hours between manuscript making and printing

1615–1630 Break

1630–1650
Zhenzhen Lu (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Thinking about orthography in early modern China

1700–1720
Juliette Cezzar (Parsons School of Design, USA)
Movable type, multiple scripts, changing alphabets: design, technology, and literacy in the late Ottoman Empire

1730–1800
Ulrike Stark (University of Chicago, USA)
Making tracts attractive: missionary print in nineteenth-century rural India

1800–1815
Closing remarks

Register via the 'External Link' below.

This exhibition gathers the recent acquisitions of the drawing room of Les Pêcheries.

On the occasion of the 19th Annual Salon du dessin in Paris, museums in France have organized related exhibitions, including the inaugural exhibition of the "tunnel des dessins" at the Musée des Pêcheries, which presents many works for the first time.

Quantitatively, the drawing room of the Musée des Pêcheries de Fécamp is one of the most modest of the Museums of France. But it still preserves works of great beauty, which until now has remained very confidential because they can not be exposed in good conditions of conservation. The aim of this "drawing tunnel" - in the words of Achim von Meier, architect/museographer who designed it - is to be able to exhibit these fragile works in rotation, protected from the direct glare of the daylight, under rigorously controlled artificial lighting, and thus to the admiration of the public.

The sixteenth century is beautifully represented in the collection of Fécamp, with 28 portraits of characters of the court of Valois. Also including the work of Pierre Dumonstier, the Portrait of King Charles IX child is the flagship; from the eighteenth century, the young woman sitting plaiting a wreath of flowers by Jacques-André Portail (1695-1759) is an exceptional intimate sheet particularly attractive and precious. But most of the are from the nineteenth century. Alongside the sketches by Delacroix, maritime or regional designs are, unsurprisingly, the most numerous, and the magnificent works of Pierre Prins (1838-1913), impressionist pastel artist, close friend of Édouard Manet, who stayed several times in Fécamp at the turn of the century.

In 2011, the descendants of Édouard Renaud, a railway engineer born in Fécamp in 1873, offered the Musée de Fécamp 53 watercolors that their grandfather made during the First World War when he was mobilized as a officer in charge of the construction of the railways while serving on the front. The donation of these watercolors of war, which illustrate the daily life of the soldiers, was completed in 2016 with a new donation of 60 additional sheets. They will form the subject of the second exhibition of the "tunnel of drawings" presented from November 11, 2018 on the occasion of the centenary of the Armistice.

This exhibition allows visitors to discover 21 original etchings by Rembrandt, some by his students, and drawings attributed to Rembrandt or his entourage. Rembrandt’s engravings, belonging to the large collection of Dutch engravings amassed by the Duc d’Aumale, have never been exhibited to the public.

The graphic arts collection at Chantilly, one of the richest in France, was established by Henri d’Orléans, Duc d’Aumale (1822-1897), son of King Louis-Philippe. The former bequeathed his collection to the Institut de France in 1884, along with the Château de Chantilly and its collections of paintings, precious books and art objects. These collections form the heart of the Musée Condé. Respecting the wishes of the donor, they cannot be lent outside of Chantilly.

A lover of 17th-century Nordic engravings, in the second half of the 19th century the Duc d’Aumale acquired a number of Rembrandt’s soft-ground etchings. He selected prints of the highest quality: Christ Healing the Sick, also known as The Hundred Guilder Print (2nd print on Japanese paper) bears discreet annotations from the hand of the great specialist, Robert-Dumesnil (1778-1864): "‘I do not know a more beautiful print". It was estimated at 124 pounds in the inventory handwritten by the Duc d’Aumale; 120 pounds in the inventory of burgher and Mayor of Amsterdam, Jan Six. The Landscape with Three Trees by the same Rembrandt is deemed "the most beautiful print ever known"; it was acquired in London at the art dealer Colnaghi’s on 24 January 1859 as "proof of the greatest beauty on paper". The prints bear the stamp of some of the greatest collectors, including Pierre Mariette in the 17th century.

According to the current Dutch specialist of Rembrandt’s engraved work, Dr Jaco Rutgers, this is possibly Rembrandt’s finest set of engravings preserved in France, after the four large Parisian collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Edmond de Rothschild Collection at the Musée du Louvre, the Dutuit Collection at the Petit Palais, and the Custodia Foundation. The Duc d’Aumale’s Collection features several scenes of beggars and paupers, landscapes, portraits (including Rembrandt’s mother), and some religious scenes. The last room displays several drawings from the Musée Condé, attributed to Rembrandt or his entourage.

The exhibition presents 54 works from the collection of the Musée d'arts de Nantes. Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) was a strange and brilliant personality. Inspired by the Antiquity and by the Italian painters of the Renaissance, he created a dreamy world. He notably illustrated the novel "Notre Dame de Paris" by Victor Hugo and "Les Trophées de José-Maria" by Hérédia. He was a fantastic engraver and painter.

Architects have always been interested in interior design if only because the compatibility of a building’s function and its practicality is a measure of its success. Another reason is that many master builders had training in architecture and decorative painting, and were close to artists at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Their taste for colour and decorative motifs could be satisfied in designing interiors. In fact, the idea of a total work of art, which developed in the late 19th century, became a call for the integration of the artistic disciplines. These architectural decors were inspired by a vocabulary that extended from medieval times to the 18th century, and included the influences of Orientalism. This historicist approach is revealed as much in public buildings by the use of panelling and marouflage canvas to treat surfaces, as in private dwellings where great importance was placed on drapery, mouldings and painted decorations. The salons, reception rooms and stairs were the areas most favoured for decoration by architects, such as the one in the Gare d’Orsay by Victor Laloux.

The Musée d'Orsay has, since 1995, held the large collection of drawings (over 2 000) that Guimard had deposited in the Orangerie of the Saint-Cloud estate in 1918, and which were saved from destruction in 1968 by the Association d'Etude et de Défense de l'Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs du XXe Siècle.

Since then, Hector Guimard has been the subject of a major rehabilitation, which has highlighted how important the abstract nature of his ornamental vocabulary was for the birth of modern art.

On the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Hector Guimard's birth, the Musée d'Orsay is planning to look back at the training of this iconic architect of Art Nouveau by presenting a selection of drawings from his time as a student at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and then at the École des Beaux-Arts (1883-1893). These drawings give us a better understanding of the complexity of sources, which, before he discovered Victor Horta's architecture in 1895, was the crucible of the famous “Style Guimard”.

After distinguishing himself at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs (1883-1885), where he became aware of Viollet-le-Duc's Gothic Rationalism, Guimard spent twelve years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1885-1897). His experience there was not entirely crowned with success, as he failed to win the school's most prestigious prize, the Prix de Rome. His radical stance even resulted in his fellow students calling him the “Ravachol” of architecture – a reference to a notorious political anarchist of the time. Indeed, the drawings that Guimard produced as part of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts monthly competitions reveal how the young architect managed to breathe new life into this traditional exercise, with original layouts, a new ornamental exuberance and graphic freedom. But the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was itself in the throes of change, as shown here by the drawings of Louis Pille and Louis Boille, two architects who were almost contemporaries of Guimard. Wishing to support himself, which could explain his relative lack of success while a student, the young architect was teaching perspective at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs at the same time, and trained many pupils, following the example of the young decorator Émile Bernaux, a collection of his drawings are presented here.

Painted or printed – in colour with gold or in black and white: images on parchment and paper served many purposes in the late Middle Ages. They illustrated and embellished books, but they were also served to heighten the emotional experience of religious devotion and to give sensual pleasure to the reader.

The acquisition of seven early hand-coloured engravings from the prayer book of an Utrecht nun and the return of a wartime loss provide a welcome opportunity to take a closer look at the subject of books and images. The exhibition opens with examples of hand-painted book illuminations, followed by printed images for handwritten books. Representative examples of important techniques and themes shed more light on this development. At the profane end is the oldest known printed playing card.

A selection of nearly one hundred works on paper, recently acquired by the Fondation Custodia, is now on public display.

A collection is like a building, each of its elements contributes to the strength of the whole. This was the philosophy of Frits Lugt (1884-1970), art historian emeritus, dealer, collector and founder of the Fondation Custodia. Frits Lugt was particularly fond of work on paper – drawings, prints, artists’ letters – which soon came to constitute the heart of his collection, as well as its focal point. The Fondation Custodia’s attachment to graphic art is therefore part of its identity, as the scope and extent of its collection proves; the numerous exhibitions devoted to work on paper organised by the Fondation endorse this attachment.

After "Watteau to Degas" (2010) and "Un cabinet particulier" (2010), the Fondation Custodia is staging a new exhibition devoted to its collection of graphic art, this time putting the emphasis on a selection of about one hundred recently-acquired works.

As part of the wild art scene in New York in the early 1980s, George Condo was close to painters such as Basquiat and Keith Haring and worked at Warhol's Factory applying diamond dust to silkscreen. At the same time, he found his way to his own artistic expression, which he describes as "artificial realism".

Condo (born in 1957) mixes input from art history's masters – such as Velazquez, Manet and Picasso – with elements of American Pop Art. He distorts and renews this material so that it stands out and becomes his own: a kind of strange hybrids that blur boundaries between the comic and the tragic, the grotesque and the beautiful, the classic and the innovative. His works are inventive, amusing and sometimes macabre.

Condo has never been shown in Scandinavia before, and this exhibition of his drawings from four decades – which is part of the Louisiana On Paper series – is thus a unique opportunity to become acquainted with this original artist. The Way I Think is a collaboration with The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.