Fondation Louis Vuitton Spotlights Overlooked Collector Gustave Fayet

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is presenting a comprehensive exhibition,“ Gustave Fayet: Collector – Artist Designer,” which aims to revive the long-forgotten reputation of the early 20th-century French figure, who lived from 1865 to 1925. The exhibition explores Fayet both as an astute collector and a prolific designer, showcasing his significant impact on the art world during his lifetime.

Over the course of his life, Fayet amassed an impressive collection of Post-Impressionist works, including 10 paintings by Vincent van Gogh, 101 works by Paul Gauguin (including 54 paintings ), and 128 works by Odilon Redon (including 84 paintings and pastels ). He also owned pieces by artists such as Degas, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Bonnard, and Matisse. These diverse works, which had been dispersed since 1928, have been reunited for the exhibition through loans from international institutions and private collections, illustrating Fayet's discerning eye.

Alongside the collected art, the exhibition features 375 of Fayet's own creations, many of which have been restored for the show. These include a room dedicated to 72 reed-pen plates inspired by a Provençal poem and gnarled olive trees seen in Mallorca. Born into a prosperous family of winegrowers and landowners, Fayet's journey is documented with original invoices and personal inventories detailing his purchases and sales from galleries and auction houses. His correspondence with artists like Paul Signac, Aristide Maillol, and Gauguin is also on display in the opening galleries.

Before collecting, Fayet maintained a painting practice, primarily focusing on plein air landscapes. As assistant curator and then director of a local museum in his native Béziers, he showcased Picasso's Woman by the Sea ( 1901 ), marking only the second time the artist's work had been exhibited in France. Curator Sylvie Patry notes in an accompanying text that Fayet supported artists“at the margins of institutional authorities or even in opposition to them.” Notably, his van Gogh canvases, which included depictions of factories, thistles, plane trees, and the hospital garden at the Saint-Rémy asylum, were never traded, unlike some of his Matisse paintings. Van Gogh's 1889 Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear hung in Fayet's bedroom. He collected works by only two women painters, Berthe Morisot and Jacqueline Marval, with the latter's odalisque depiction being his final acquisition.

Fayet was also a significant collector of Gauguin's work during the artist's lifetime, maintaining correspondence with him between 1900 and 1903. After moving to Paris in 1905, Fayet's 7th arrondissement apartment's reception room was entirely filled with Gauguin's works, displayed in a salon style. The exhibition brings together famous pieces such as The Yellow Christ ( 1889 ), along with canvases of cowherds and washerwomen, and the wood-engraving series Noa Noa. Fayet's enthusiasm for Redon is also highlighted, with works like Redon's late 19th-century Noirs, featuring charcoal drawings of chimeras and astral eyeballs.

In 1908, Fayet purchased the Cistercian abbey of Fontfroide, which he restored and adorned with Asian Buddhas and Moorish furniture. Redon created a notable commission for the abbey, producing Le Jour and La Nuit for the library walls, and the overdoor panel Le Silence. These panels, classified as monuments historiques, are now on view outside Fontfroide for the first time for this exhibition.

The museum's top floor is dedicated to Fayet's own artistic endeavors. In 1896, he established a stoneware workshop in Béziers with sculptor Louis Paul, a former student of Rodin, displaying vases with matte glazes and an iridescent sheen. Walls of buvards (blotting papers used by botanists), filled with vibrant floral motifs from 1912 onward, served as designs for wallpaper, fabrics, and rugs. In 1920, Fayet founded the Atelier de la Dauphine in Paris to translate his drawings into housewares, securing commissions from high-end clients such as couturière Jeanne Lanvin, for whom he crafted four rugs for her townhouse. His notebooks from 1920-24 demonstrate his deep involvement in both production and design, overseeing wool selection and color palettes.

In 1920, Fayet also became a shareholder in Maison Della, where 15 women wove carpets based on his decorative watercolors. The exhibition culminates in Gallery 10, showcasing an array of wool rugs, previously exhibited during Fayet's lifetime and in 1926 at Paris's Musée des Arts Décoratifs. These rugs, which Fayet, quoting Edgar Allan Poe, considered“the soul of the apartment,” hang tapestry-style in a dark, chapel-like space. The gallery is illuminated by four stained-glass windows by Richard Burgsthal, inspired by Louis Comfort Tiffany, created for Fontfroide. The final gallery features 1920s glamour with satin dresses, Grecian robes, and embroidered coats by Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, and Jeanne Lanvin, reflecting the broader tastes and lifestyle of the Fayet family. The exhibition runs through March 3, 2027.

This extensive survey highlights Fayet as a significant precursor to the modern multi-hyphenate, demonstrating his wide-ranging interests and creative output across various disciplines long before such versatility became commonplace.

Source: Observer Arts

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