Remportez des entrées pour l'expo « L'étoffe de l'artiste. De Rosa Bonheur à Sonia Delaunay »

At the end of the 19th century, while many artists wore common city attire, some asserted themselves through more elegant clothes, while others appeared in smocks, overalls, or jumpsuits, embodying a new ideal of the artist at work.

Dress codes soon multiplied, fueled by a movement toward individualization. At the turn of the 20th century, the wardrobe became alternately a revolutionary manifesto, an extension of the creative act, or even an affirmation of identity: gender fluidity and games of cross-dressing, quests for real or dreamed-of elsewhere, belongings or marginalities... Artists carefully put together an outfit, and sketched

recognizable silhouettes for posterity.

While the relationship of artists to clothing has already been explored (notably in the exhibition S’habiller en artiste. L’artiste et le vêtement at Louvre Lens in 2025), L'étoffe de l'artiste adopts an innovative approach at the crossroads of art history, sociology, and fashion history. For the first time, more than 50 textile pieces, accessories, and objects worn by artists have been brought together, thanks to extensive research conducted by the curators in the collections and archives of institutions and private collections. These unique pieces are juxtaposed with 50 photographs, 33 paintings, 12 drawings, and 9 sculptures in a chrono-thematic journey, to grasp the styles, looks, and stagings that immediately identify them as artists. Special attention was paid to the diversity of the artists represented, with nearly a quarter of women artists exhibited.

The fruit of five years of work and research, L'étoffe de l'artiste benefits from exceptional loans from major French and European institutions such as the musée d’Orsay, the musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris, the musée d’Art moderne de Paris, Palais Galliera, Maison-atelier Foujita, the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (Italy), the Wien Museum (Austria), and the Städel Museum in Francfort-sur-le-Main (Germany). Many loans also come from private collections.