By the student curators of the Ecole du Louvre, as part of the exhibition-school project*
Emblematic figures of Montmartre where their printing studio was located, printers and engravers Auguste Delâtre and his son Eugène marked the artistic landscape from the 1860s to the 1930s. The exhibition immerses visitors in the history and atmosphere of the Rue Lepic workshop, a renowned printing house and meeting place for artists who have come to have their prints printed, like Jean-François Millet, Edouard Manet and Mary Cassatt.
Nourished by the effervescence of the district, the original production of the Delâtre is marked by the artistic interests of their time, among which the peasantry, childhood, scenes of modern life and urban leisure. Under the influence of coloured images then widely disseminated by posters and advertising, Eugène improved etching techniques through the use of colour.
Father and son also approach in their creations the great mutations of the city, with a vision that is both nostalgic and documentary, and are committed to the preservation of Montmartre.
The exhibition ends by evoking the posterity of the works of Auguste and Eugène Delâtre through their heirs.
This exhibition is made possible thanks to the donations of several hundred works, from the 1970s, by Jacqueline Delâtre and Claude Baissin, the daughter and great-grandson of Eugène Delâtre. Together, these works - most of which are shown for the first time - offer a century-long journey through the family workshop, a place of know-how and exchange.
*Each year, the exhibition-school project allows ten Master 2 students from the Ecole du Louvre to design a temporary exhibition from the permanent collections of a partner museum. Accompanied by the museum teams and their teachers, the students carried out research on the Delâtre collection, elaborated the cultural programming, the scenography or even imagined a tactile mediation device.
More information on www.musee-saint-denis.com
A century of printing(s). In the Delâtre workshop in Montmartre
September 15 to December 11, 2023