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The Cernuschi Museum in Paris is one of the very few French institutions specializing in Asian art. Its collection encompasses ancient and modern art works, alongside a lesser-known photographic archives held at its Library. The Cernuschi Museum Director Eric Lefebvre together with Camille Bertrand – head of the museum Library – kindly answered our questions.
Interview: Eric Lefebvre, Director of Cernuschi Museum
Since 2015, Eric Lefebvre has taken up his role as director of the Musée Cernuschi [Cernuschi Museum], where he previously has occupied the position of curator of the Chinese collections for almost ten years. He obtained his PhD in Art History at the Université Paris-Sorbonne, and has written several articles and publications on the history of Chinese painting and collecting amongst other modern and contemporary topics. He also taught the history of Chinese art at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and at the École du Louvre and has curated many exhibitions devoted to Chinese art, particularly painting, in France and abroad.
The Cernuschi Museum is one of the very few French institutions specializing in Asian art. It has a heritage of 140 years of discoveries reflecting the changing Western vision of Asian art. The collection was brought back from Asia by Henri Cernuschi (1821-1896) during a tour across Asia. On his return, Cernuschi had a mansion built, which would later house the eponymous museum. After the museum opened in 1898, it hosted numerous exhibitions devoted to the various forms of artistic expression in Asia, mainly presenting arts from China and Japan.
The recent renovation of the permanent exhibition at the Cernuschi Museum in 2020 has helped promote its collections of ancient and modern art works and enhanced its image: the international impact of the exhibitions devoted to the Chinese artists of the School of Paris since1946, strengthened the close ties between the museum and the Asian artists active in Paris in the past and today. Last April 2022, Eric Lefebvre alongside Camille Bertrand – head of the museum Library – kindly answered our questions.
Henri Cernuschi leaves France in the early 1870s to travel around the world, including China, where he brought back many artworks that are now part of the museum’s collection. How about photographs, did he take or acquire any?
We know indeed that Cernuschi’s collection was mainly built up during a trip that lasted between 1871 and 1873. This journey is fairly well documented thanks to a written account compiled by his traveling companion, the French art critic Théodore Duret [(1838-1927). Duret, Théodore.
Voyage en Asie : le Japon, la Chine, la Mongolie, Java, Ceylan, l'Inde
. Paris : Michel Lévy frères, 1874. Source:
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5408633w.texteImage
].
When reading Duret’s book, we immediately understand that objects, in particular bronze objects, take precedence in the collection of Cernuschi. This is the heart of his project: creating a unique collection around this material, which was an intuition he had in Japan and that intensified during his trip to China.
This journey through Asia is also a trip around the world, and during the last part of the trip – while he was travelling across South-East Asia, Ceylon and India – there was a turnaround: he acquired less and less objects. Instead, he progressively acquired more photographs. The collection holds four photographic albums, which were acquired from three active photographs at this time: Joseph Lawton, Samuel Bourne, and Captain Edmund Lyon, also several albumen prints mounted on cardboard mainly from Indonesia. The inventories also mentioned that he brought back drawings of monuments. The keyword is indeed monument, since these photographs, especially from Southeast Asia and India, are mainly focused on architecture. While he was perhaps more impressed by objects in some place, he developed a very significant interest in architecture in South East Asia, which echoed the international concerns over the preservation of ancient monuments across the world.
As regards the reception of these photographs back in France, they were of great interest to visitors of the exhibition Henri Cernuschi set up back in France in 1873 at the Palais de l'Industrie [temporary exhibition hall erected during the World Fair in 1855 in Paris; it was demolished and made way for the still standing Grand Palais in 1900]. Cernuschi even invited artists to come to the exhibition and draw from his collection. To cite a famous example, the French painter Gustave Moreau [1826-1898] copied photographs of Indian and Southeast Asian architecture, and these elements later nurtured his works. Moreau’s drawings were very faithful, so much so that today we can put the photographs next to Moreau's works and clearly see the resemblance. Moreau precisely annotated his drawings, saying that he had copied them at the Palais de l'Industrie. So, it’s really interesting to see how such photographs impacted on French art at that time.
Another interesting milestone in the utilization of photographs is the mention of photographs in the first Museum guidebook dating from 1897. We notice that the end of the tour is made up of photographs, more precisely these very photographs of Southeast Asian monuments. In the end, we can observe that there were few photographs compared to objects. Nevertheless, they had a peculiar role in the museum project and in the visitors’ experience as it was conceived at the end of the 19th century.
Do we know if these photographs were exhibited afterwards?
Insofar as they were part of Cernuschi’s project, they were later shown during exhibitions dedicated to Cernuschi. In particular in the late 1990s, a seminal exhibition – that reviewed his journey and his oeuvre as a collector – included photographs. They were presented both in the exhibition space and the published catalogue.
In 2021, the Cernuschi Museum set up its first exhibition dedicated to a contemporary photographer called Masuura Yukihito. How did you decide to put together this exhibition and how was the reception?
This event is linked to the development of another axis of research and acquisition of the museum, which is an axis dedicated to the activity of Asian artists in France. First, we did a lot of work on Chinese artists living in France since the beginning of the 20th century through several exhibitions. Then, we extended our study to all the major cultural areas of the collection, including China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. By acquiring and exhibiting artworks we aim to better illustrate the work of Asian artists from these four countries in France up to the contemporary period.
Masuura Yukihito is an artist who was trained in France and stayed here for a long time. Today he has returned to Japan. He wanted to donate to the museum a series he did in Japan, which actually drew its inspiration from previous works about European sculpture. His career resonates with the process of exchanges that characterizes much of modern and contemporary artistic creation. On another note, the subject and technique he chose were of particular interest to us. The starting point of his works was the representation of rare Shinto ceremonies during which one rebuilt sacred architectures. He carefully documented these long ceremonies, while printing his photographs on traditional Japanese paper, named Echizen, with long and thick fibres. When you are in front of the prints, you clearly realize that you're dealing with a very particular medium.
The reception from the public and media was excellent. A lot of visitors came only to see these works despite the limited number of photographs showcased. The prints were shown in a new room inaugurated in 2020, during the permanent collection’s renovation that year. It now ends with a space designed to display fragile works such as painting, calligraphy as well as photography thanks to its environmental condition.
Tell us a bit more about the photographic archives collection of the museum.
We recently reorganized the various collections, including the photographic archives, photographic albums, photographs funds, etc. One of the best documented fund at the moment is the one about Felice Beato [1832-1909]. It’s a first step, we leave a door open so as to welcome people interested in the topic. We hope we will be able to share more in the near future.
Right now, we just finished our work on the site page presenting the museum archives, it is accessible through our website, in the library section. It spans from the museum opening and the earliest exhibitions when Henri d'Ardenne de Tizac [1877-1932] was the main curator. Afterwards, we will develop on this page we titled Asia in photographs, the aim is to present the variety of the collection with a focus on the main parts, including Beato which in fact is a part of the photographs Cernuschi brought back from his journey.
Each time it requires a lot of preparatory work to describe the archives, and their consultation conditions are not optimal yet. Felice Beato archive was completely restored, cleaned, conditioned and digitized. [Beato archive includes 44 prints from two books entitled Native Types and Views of Japan published by the late 1860s.] But this is not necessarily the case for all of the archives, for example we have stereoscopic views on glasses from the count Polignac who went in China in 1909, completely cleaned, restored and conditioned. Our goal is to offer resources that can be accurately accessed and quoted.
It’s important to remember that René Grousset Library is a place of consultation opened to open to visitors, students and researchers by appointment.
How often the museum publishes exhibition catalogue?
Each annual exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Paris Musées, which is the network of museums of the city of Paris that we belong to. All new acquisitions are also published each year in the “Arts Asiatiques” [Asian Arts Review] which is published jointly with the l'École française d'Extrême-Orient [EFEO], and the Guimet Museum, accessible online on Persée or JSTOR. Speaking of which, photographs of Masuura Yukihito were used for the cover of one of the latest issue.
What about traveling exhibitions, is it something of interest to the museum?
There are lots of different scenarios. The museum sometimes has designed exhibitions for other venues, outside the walls. For example, last year we planned an exhibition devoted to the Vietnamese painter Mai Thu at the Ursulines Museum in Mâcon [France]. In the past, we have also set up exhibitions on Chinese artists active in France in Hong Kong and Brazil.
Our vocation is also to host exhibitions, mostly coming from Asia but not exclusively. We often have one-time exhibition that can travel to other venues. But a travelling exhibition involves a whole logistics process that is not necessarily possible every time. The criteria are known: several institutions need to schedule far ahead a common calendar, almost five years in advance to have a chance that it works well. And then it depends on the type of artworks you are showing, for instance our latest exhibitions included Chinese paintings and Japanese prints. In both cases, we were working with fragile material. So even if another museum was interested to hold them, it wouldn’t have been possible because of museum conservation standards. Such fragile artworks have to be exhibited during short periods and under controlled lighting to be preserved.
What are the future projects for the museum?
Our next exhibition in fall 2022 is entitled “Encre en movement” [Ink in Motion]. It will cover the history of Chinese painting in the 20th century and will present, for once, artworks from the museum’s own collection. We will show fragile artworks, which explains why our rich collection cannot be shown as often as one might wish. And then, we will have a big anniversary exhibition in 2023. We will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Cernuschi’s return from Asia. We will have the cruel choice of selecting amongst the 5000 art pieces he brought back.
More information:
Musée Cernuschi
7 avenue Vélasquez, 75008 Paris (France)
www.cernuschi.paris.fr
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