Photo: DR

From January 30 to May 13, 2019, an eclectic set of paintings, fashion sketches, posters, photographs, drawings, masks, films ... will be exhibited alongside the painter's paintings.

In five sections, the exhibition brings together a hundred works and shows different aspects of freckles. Without claiming to be exhaustive, it highlights the importance of this distinctive color through works that are sure to amaze and detonate!

This exhibition of works from different universes evokes the imagination and prejudices around the freckle, which both fascinates and disturbs. For the occasion, it benefited from significant loans from the museums of Orsay, the Decorative Arts, the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, the MuCEM, the Musée du Quai Branly- Jacques Chirac, the Comédie Française as well as Nathalie Rykiel, Geneviève Boutry, and private collections.

Papua New Guinea (New Ireland), Kepong mask, twentieth century, wood, vegetable fibers, pigments, turbo operculum, Paris, musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac - Photo © Patrick Gries / Bruno Descoings

Redhead

The exhibition opens with the first redhead by Jean-Jacques Henner, Idylle de 1872, and a few works that allow us to understand how the artist has generalized red in his work, whatever the subject of the paintings. This section also allows you to tackle the theme of the portrait with The Countess Kessler with fl ambiant hair put into perspective with Young Woman with a Rose by Auguste Renoir and the enigmatic Woman with an Orchid by Edgar Maxence and current photographs by Geneviève Boutry. The visitor is then invited to take a stroll through literature (Baudelaire, Zola, Maupassant, etc.) and the red-haired icons of the XNUMXth century.

The strength of a color

The confrontation of the works of Jean-Jacques Henner, masks from Papua New Guinea and creations paying homage to Sonia Rykiel underline the strength of a color, "a color that is seen and set apart from others" as so aptly written. Michel Pastoureau on the subject of orange.

Freckles and prejudices

Historically, redheads have aroused reactions combining fascination and repulsion. This section presents the imagination around the redhead and its multiple aspects: seduction (Sarah Bernhardt, Loïe Fuller), laughter (clowns) and fear (ogres)… An original focus is also on the heroes of our childhood from Foil de Garotte to Spirou.

Some features of blood

The drawings of Jean-Jacques Henner take pride of place in this exhibition. Sanguine is for him the ideal medium to make the hair of Andromeda, Judith and Truth blaze up to the puzzling dead Christ. In counterpoint, there are the felt-tip sketches made for the defle-homage to Sonia Rykiel in 2008 by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Martin Margiela. The black and the red flap here like a flag.

Why so much red?

To question the reasons for Henner's predilection for freckles invites us to enter the painter's studio. He had models pose there, who were not all redheads, and multiplied the sketches. From the disturbing Herodias to the repentant Madeleine, including the sensual Truth: almost all are redheads! The most original in this production are the red Christs which intrigue while this color is usually associated with the traitor Judas.

Pratical information

Jean-Jacques Henner National Museum
43, avenue de Villiers, 75017 Paris
Phone. : + 33 (0) 1 47 63 42 73
www.musee-henner.fr
publics@musee-henner.fr

Access

• Metro: line 3, Malesherbes station, line 2, Monceau station
• Bus: lines 30, 31 and 94

Opening days and hours

• The museum is open every day except Tuesday and certain holidays from 11 a.m. to 18 p.m.,
• Nocturnal and cultural events on the 2nd Thursday of the month (open until 21 p.m.)

Prices

• Full price € 6, Reduced price € 4
• Coupled ticket JeanJacques Henner National Museum / Gustave Moreau National Museum: Full price € 9,
• Reduced price 7 €
• Free and reductions under the conditions of national museums