Often associated with grief, sobriety, and humility; dark and intense, sad or elegant, black is indeed a color. These qualities give it strength in the history of art: it removes and refines the superfluous to better focus or draw the eye toward the essential.
Black is a mystery, a bottomless depth, like a well whose limit we never perceive, a presence that absorbs and opens up to infinity. Sometimes a symbol of evil, it is also, in art, a revealer of light. For Pierre Soulagesblack becomes a reflective surface, a space where light reveals itself; for Pablo Picasso, contrast generates a striking luminous intensity – as in Blind Minotaur guided by a little girl in the night, a masterpiece where shadow gives birth to light.
With Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse, artists defined by color, the way we perceive their works renews itself. Chagall’s inks and preparatory drawings for Chagall’s lithographs Chagall’s preparatory drawings for lithographs reveal the works before their chromatic brilliance: attention is focused on the narrative, the figures, the essence of the story. With Matisse, the line asserts itself with virtuosity in aquatints whose intensity gives rise to a new emotion, more naked, more direct ( see Nadia de Profil, 1948).
Joan Miró, through his use of aquatint and carborundum, creates works almost in relief, where the material seems to detach from color (see Femme au bijoux, 1968). The result is a singular tension, as if two independent works were juxtaposed to form a single entity.
Featuring inks and etchings by Pablo PicassoHenri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pierre Soulages and Olivier DebréThis exhibition gives pride of place to black in all its expressive richness.
On the occasion of the 53rd anniversary of Picasso’s passing on
April 8, 1973, we are pleased to highlight the work of the Spanish master, emphasizing the intensity of his contrasts and his genius.
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Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday:
10 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
(6 p.m. Saturdays)
Artwork presented: Pablo Picasso, Femme au Fauteuil (Manteau Polonais), black lithograph, 76 × 56.5 cm. Picasso Estate 2026