Treasures from the Fondation des Treilles

21.01 – 29.05.2022

In early 2022 the Fondation de l’Hermitage will be privileged to host Switzerland’s first exhibition featuring a selection of the greatest masterpieces from the Fondation des Treilles, based in the southern French village of Tourtour. Created by the visionary patron Anne Gruner Schlumberger (1905-1993), this collection includes works by Hans Arp, Georges Braque, Victor Brauner, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, François-Xavier Lalanne, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Takis. The Lausanne exhibition will feature around a hundred paintings, drawings, engraving, sculptures and objects, offering visitors a unique opportunity to admire these treasures outside their usual setting and to explore the taste, personality and artistic friendships of one of the 20th century’s most illustrious collectors.

Anne Gruner Schlumberger was born into a family of industrialists in Alsace and grew up in an atmosphere of appreciation for both the arts and sciences. In the late 1940s she began collecting exceptional artworks, from the ancient to the most modern, with a particular interest in surrealism. In 1964 she opened the Fondation des Treilles in Tourtour (Haut Var), designed, she said, as “a setting for thought”. Today it remains a haven for the development of fruitful synergies between academics, musicians, poets and philosophers through residential courses, seminars, and residencies, and also hosts its founder’s eclectic collection of over a thousand artworks.

Designed in conjunction with the Fondation des Treilles, the exhibition at L’Hermitage will enable visitors to dive into the worlds of the collection’s two most richly featured artists, Max Ernst and Victor Brauner. It also promises a number of extraordinary surprises, including a spectacular flock of fourteen Sheep by the sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne, and a group of birds that has flown from L’Ordre des Oiseaux (1962) by the poet Saint-John Perse into a lithograph by Georges Braque. Meanwhile Schlumberger’s love of Mediterranean culture will be reflected in dialogues established between a horse’s head from the ancient world and reliefs in painted wood by Hans Arp, or “white paste” pieces by Pablo Picasso and skyward-leaping sculptures by Takis.

Back in pictures

Catalog

Trésors de la Fondation des Treilles

Sous la direction de Sylvie Wuhrmann et Marie-Paule Vial
Publié en coédition avec les Éditions Snoeck, Gand
208 pages, 24 × 29 cm, 140 illustrations
CHF 45.-

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Poster

Trésors de la Fondation des Treilles

Format mondial F4 (89,5 × 128 cm)
Œuvre : Hans Arp, Objets placés selon les lois du hasard (détail), 1936
Design graphique : Balmer Hählen
CHF 20.-

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