Musée Estrine collection: a century of painting

At the end of the 1980s, having deliberately chosen to show painting and the graphic arts in a context that was not very conducive to them, the works brought together in the Musée Estrine collection have developed into a scientifically legitimate body of work. Vincent van Gogh paved the way for many other artists who would in turn come to live in the Alpilles region, forming a group rich in its heterogeneity. Therein lies the mission of the Musée Estrine: to give an account of the artistic activity that has enamelled this Provence without, however, limiting itself to its borders by showing a contemporary work, representative of 100 years of painting.

The tour of the 2024 collections will follow a thematic progression through the various salons of the Hôtel Estrine.
The beginning of this visual history is marked by a space dedicated to Albert Gleizes, from his post-impressionist work to the first cubism, towards the apogee of his painting, intimately linked to the notion of the collective, carried by the painter and his wife Juliette Roche, who is also being honoured this year.

André Marchand, whose iconography is that of a Mediterranean basin dominated by the ancient worlds, will illustrate the age-old theme of the still life. The expressionist and poetic works of Michel Potage, and the more ascetic Bernard Bouin and Jean Martin-Roch, will develop this theme, complemented by the landscapes of Michel de Gallard, representative of young painting in the 1950s.

This journey through art history will highlight the variety of plastic writing on the fringes of abstraction, with works by Jacques Doucet, co-founder of the CoBrA movement, the geometries of Antoine de Margerie and the oils and pastels of Robert Droulers and Henri Goetz.

Lastly, Paul Rebeyrolle, Eduardo Arroyo, Roger-Edgar Gillet and Gérard Drouillet will be invoking figurative art in a variety of plastic forms that are characteristic of their research.

In summer 2024, an additional section will be unveiled in the main gallery, opening a more contemporary chapter with Vincent Bioulès, Denis Laget and Nadjib Ben Ali: works with multiple influences marking the culmination of a hundred years of plastic research in the collections of the Musée Estrine.