Following the success of the exhibition “Icons of Modern Art. The Shchukin Collection,” the Fondation Louis Vuitton will be staging a collaborative exhibition with New York’s MoMA this coming autumn, possibly including bringing many of MoMA’s masterpieces by French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists to Paris.
There’s not much information yet available about the elusive exhibition, but it was confirmed by Le Monde in October.
Bernard Arnault’s Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton has set the standard for the seemingly ever-increasing number of Fondations d’Entreprise opening in France.
Also in Paris, Fondation Lafayette will open in Autumn 2017, with a focus on contemporary art. In 2018, the Tadao Ando-designed museum of Christie’s owner François Pinault’s will open to the public. And the Fondation Martell in Cognac, which will see the iconic cognac brand transform one of its old factories into an art space, is slated for completion in 2021.
In the face of what could be viewed as competition, what could cause a bigger splash than bringing some of the star pieces from MoMA’s collection back to France, even if only for a few months?
Speculation has already begun as to which pieces will be on view this autumn, with Pablo Picasso’s ground-breaking work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) being mentioned as a possibility.
When speaking to Le Monde in October 2016, key adviser to Arnault Jean-Paul Claverie responded to a question regarding Demoiselles d’Avignon by stating that it would be “a dream” to bring it back to Paris. A dream indeed, since the painting has not traveled since 1988.
Other top pieces from MoMA’s collection include works by Vincent van Gogh, including Starry Night and The Olive Trees, and paintings by French artists such as Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, and Pierre Bonnard, to name but a few.