From 5 November to 11 January 2022, the Helene Bailly Gallery explores one of the richest themes in the history of figurative art: the nude. Through the eyes of Henri-Edmond Cross, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, and many others, rediscover the evolution of different interpretations of the subject through time, both academic and provocative.
Until the end of the 18th century, the nude body is celebrated for its perfection according to the criteria of the time, from the muscular bodies of Michelangelo to the curved and sensual lines of Rubens.
The 19th century marked an important turning point in the representation of the nude. Far from the emphatic representations of ideal beauty, the 19th century was rooted in reality. Bodies are no longer idealised but represented in their intimacy. Sensuality was born of this light shed by artists on what had until then been the anonymity of everyday life.
Through this exhibition, we wish to highlight these artists of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, who revisited the subject of the nude without taboo, by poetising the real body or by reinterpreting the technique and the material at the centre of their pictorial and aesthetic research.
For this new exhibition, we are happy to collaborate with the talented Anissa Kermiche, a renowned jeweller, who works with materials and relief in an innovative way, sublimating the forms of her creations. Recently, she has found in the human body a new source of inspiration that blossoms with ceramics. Whether it is a woman's bust or the lower part of her body, the female nude is sublimated with almost no mention. The forms are self-sufficient and bear witness to the subtlety of the body and its mysteries.
Her passion for art, combined with her talent and mastery of materials, are testimony to the evolution of the vision of the female body. Thus, our exhibition is structured around a rigorous chronology, which highlights the identity of the female nude. From the end of the 19th century to the present day, the body and its dictates have evolved but the nude remains an inexhaustible source of imagination.
