HORS-LES-MURS - In the studio of Leonardo Cremonini

The Académie des Beaux-Arts will be paying tribute to the graphic work of Leonardo Cremonini, a foreign associate member of the Académie (1925-2010), in an exhibition to be held from 5 April to 29 May 2024 at the Pavillon Comtesse de Caen in partnership with the Beaux-Arts de Paris.

Thanks to donations orchestrated between 2022 and 2024 by Pietro Cremonini, the artist's son, the Beaux-Arts de Paris now own the complete collection of prints by Leonardo Cremonini, a major artist of the second half of the 20th century and head of the painting studio at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1983 to 1992. This unique collection is one of a kind in French and European public collections: in all, some two hundred items covering the one hundred and sixty editions produced by the artist between 1966 and 2009, plus around thirty state proofs which, in addition to their intrinsic beauty, are demonstrative of his way of working.

Although Leonardo Cremonini tried his hand at etching during his studies, it was as a mature and accomplished painter that he returned to printmaking in 1966. From working blindly on the matrix to passing through the press, printmaking was more than a metaphor for his approach as a painter; it enabled him to experience his creative process as an artist in a different way: he surrendered himself fully to this art of the "second time", in which chance and revelation, recurrence and infinity preside, as they do in the creation of his paintings.

Leonardo Cremonini (Bologna, 1925 - Paris, 2010) trained at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, then at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. His career as a painter then took him to Paris, where he lived for most of his life, alternating with stays in his studios in Bertinoro, Panarea, Trouville and Florence.

He is associated with painters such as Francis Bacon, Balthus, Roberto Matta, Karl Plattner and Zao Wou-Ki, as well as literary figures who have written extensively about his paintings, including Louis Althusser, Michel Butor, Dino Buzzati, Italo Calvino, Régis Debray, Umberto Eco and Alberto Moravia.

His work has been shown in a number of venues at the heart of the artistic effervescence of his time: Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York, Erica Brausen's Hanover Gallery in London, Max Clarac-Sérou's Galerie du Dragon and Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris. Several retrospectives have been devoted to his work, in museums in Brussels, Basel, Paris, Prague, Tokyo and Milan.
His works are held in some forty museums in Europe and the United States.

"I don't have a message to deliver", said Leonardo Cremonini. His attention was above all focused on the enigma of bodies, places and light. In 2001, he was elected a foreign associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Curated by

Anne-Marie Garcia, Honorary Curator General of Heritage, in charge of prints and photography at the Beaux-Arts de Paris from 2015 to 2023.

Anne-Marie Garcia has a doctorate in literature and is an honorary curator of cultural heritage. From 2015 to February 2023 she was in charge of the collections at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Among the exhibitions she has curated or co-curated are Les Affiches de mai 68, Dieux et Mortels, L'École de la liberté, être artiste à Paris 1648-1817, Charles Garnier un architecte pour un empire, L'Arbre et le photographe, Mark Dion - ExtraNaturel, Images en lutte and Gribouillage, de Léonard de Vinci à Cy Twombly, to name but a few. She is also the author of a book devoted to the place of photography in the collections of the Beaux-Arts, La photographie avec les arts.

Catalogue

To coincide with this exhibition, the first book devoted to the prints of Leonardo Cremonini has been published by Beaux-Arts de Paris éditions with the support of the Académie des beaux-arts.
Reproducing the entire Beaux-Arts de Paris collection, this 400-page work includes the catalogue raisonné of the complete works, written by Anne-Marie Garcia, general curator of heritage and former head of the Beaux-Arts collection, the republication of 6 fundamental texts written by Louis Althusser (1966), Michel Butor (1969), Alberto Moravia (1972), Umberto Eco (1977), Italo Calvino (1984), Jacques Brosse (1987) and Régis Debray (1995), as well as 2 texts by Pietro Cremonini, the artist's son.