The Jean Chatelus collection enters the Centre Pompidou

5/9/2023, 3:56:29 PM

Highlights: The Antoine de Galbert Foundation donated about 400 of his pieces of contemporary art, folk art and primitive arts to Beaubourg. A special collection because it reveals, in his intrepid choices, his eclecticism and his formidable erudition. With his obsession with art, in its most extreme, even radical forms, his gentleman look too serious for contemporary times, his lively humor and his mind nourished by a thousand readings, Jean Chatelus was a figure – furtive and omnipresent – of art in Paris.

This historian of the eighteenth century, lecturer at the Sorbonne, was an atypical enthusiast. His legatee, the Antoine de Galbert Foundation, donated about 400 of his pieces of contemporary art, folk art and primitive arts to Beaubourg.

It is on the eve of the long-awaited press conference, Wednesday, May 10, where Laurent Le Bon, president of the Centre Pompidou, must reveal his program until the total closure for work after the 2024 Olympics, now in December 2025, and especially for the reopening in 2030, that the Parisian museum announces a new spectacular donation that will enrich its already historical collections. A special collection because it reveals, in his intrepid choices, his eclecticism and his formidable erudition, a man as unclassifiable and irreducible as Balzac's Cousin Pons. With his obsession with art, in its most extreme, even radical forms, his gentleman look too serious for contemporary times, his lively humor and his mind nourished by a thousand readings, Jean Chatelus was a figure – furtive and omnipresent – of art in Paris.

Reserved as a Lyonnais, sparkling behind his glasses, dressed very classically in a world otherwise rather Issey...

This article is for subscribers only. You still have 88% to discover.

Want to read more?

Unblock all items immediately.

TEST FOR 0,99€

Already a subscriber? Log