From 15 October 2015 to 6 March 2016, the Musée des Avelines de Saint-Cloud, in the Parisian region, dedicates an exhibition to Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) to rediscover – as we approach the centenary of his death - this Belgian poet and art critic. Émile Verhaeren lived in Saint-Cloud, south-west Paris, from 1898 until the end of his life, in 1916. 

 

The exhibition, entitled Émile Verhaeren (1855-1916), poet and art socialite, aims to highlight this personality who was one of the most important actors of the artistic and literary life at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It portrays this major Belgian figure, unfairly forgotten, in love with the French language, through his commitments, his passions and his artistic friendships. 

 

Émile Verhaeren moved in Saint-Cloud with his wife Marthe in 1898. He praises the charm of the town and its proximity to Paris, where the poet goes every day to visit museums, galleries and artist’s studios. 

 

This exceptional exhibition, bringing together more than 180 works, is organized with the support of major French institutions (the Orsay Museum, the National Library of France…) and Belgian ones (Royal Library of Belgium, Ixelles Museum…) and many private art collections loans. She also benefits from the patronage of the Embassy of Belgium in France.

 

The exhibition will show the work of this poet of the Symbolist avant-garde presenting his main collections, some of them being illustrated by great friends painters as Théo Van Rysselberghe or Odilon Redon. The exhibition also reflects the intense art critical activity of Verhaeren to support new trends, particularly the neo-impressionism and the pictural symbolism. 

 

The exhibition is the occasion to discover paintings, sculptures and graphic works by French and Belgium artists such as Eugène Carrière, Henri-Edmond Cross, James Ensor, Maximilien Luce, Paul Signac, Odilon Redon, Théo van Rysselberghe, Auguste Rodin and many others. 

 

The Musée des Avelines wants, through this exhibition, to pay tribute to an unfairly unknown citizen of its town and to invite people to see the world through the poet’s soul. 
 

 

THE MUSÉE DES AVELINES, AN ART AND HISTORY LOCATION

 

The Musée des Avelines is located in an old villa from the 1930s in the heart of a garden. Its permanent collection presents, in a modern museum path, bright, didactic around several themes such as the history of the town of Saint-Cloud and its castle since the seventeenth century, the development of its porcelain collection, the presentation of Clodoaldians artists, the Oulmont’s donation composed by furnitures and eighteenth-century portraits associated with an absolute remarkable collection of paintings by Eugène Carrière. 

 

At the crossroads of the Arts, the Musée des Avelines offers conferences, meetings, lectures as well as performances, concerts, dance performances art workshops… Free-guided tours are organized every weekend at 3pm. The museum organizes workshops for children around the exhibitions themes on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays and during public holidays.