From June 1st to November 3rd, 2024, the Musée de Pont-Aven will present the exhibition “Women at Work, with/for the Nabis.”
Far from a logic of rediscovery or rehabilitation of forgotten figures, this exhibition does not seek to highlight greatness, originality, or exceptionality. On the contrary, it aims to show how the role and actions of women in the Nabis' circle — as wives, sisters, mothers, mothers-in-law, or lovers — were closely linked to those of men, aligning with the roles and conventions traditionally assigned to women at the time.
This female presence offers a lens through which to carefully examine the conditions of creation, the dynamics of influence, and the creative processes at play within the Nabis movement.
Following in the footsteps of recent research, “Women at Work” explores the tensions between artwork and handiwork, aesthetics and utility, art and craft, amateurism and professionalism, artist and model, active and passive, visible and invisible — in order to enrich a perspective that has often been male-dominated and fragmented.
HELENE BAILLY gallery is pleased to loan two works by Édouard Vuillard for this exhibition: Madame Vuillard Sewing. On the reverse: Study of a Seated Woman (1898) and Lucy Hessel Visiting the Roussels in Cricqueboeuf (1901).
