The Fondation de l’Hermitage is to host Switzerland’s first major retrospective of the French painter Achille Laugé (1861-1944). Deeply attached to his native region of Occitania in southwest France, Laugé is a fascinating artist who followed his own unique path within the Neo-Impressionist movement. The exhibition will feature nearly eighty works from every period of his career, highlighting the profound originality and extraordinary sensibility of this painter of everyday life. Taken from his immediate surroundings and portrayed with refined simplicity, Laugé’s subjects of choice include the area around his house in Cailhau, flowers in his garden and portraits of his family and friends. His very pure technique is characterised by the juxtaposition of the three primary colours in dots or lattices, in a highly personal variation on the divisionist method.
The exhibition is organised around themes that illustrate both the development of Laugé’s work and his preferred subjects. It relocates this remarkable painter within the context of art at the turn of the 20th century and reveals his singularity.
Expert curator:
Nicole Tamburini, Art historian, Achille Laugé specialist.
Curator:
Sylvie Wuhrmann, Director of the Fondation de l’Hermitage.