PARIS.- This exhibition brings together works of the period 1900-1915, from Maurice de Vlaminck’s (1876-1958) earliest known paintings - Vlaminck’s career started when he was 17, but none of his juvenalia has been preserved - in which he already asserted his characteristic violence, down to the works produced at the beginning of the First World War, which reflect his contemporary research on the rendering of space.

An overview of Vlaminck’s production at that time reveals the key part he played in the renewal of painting which started in the early 20th century, the inventiveness of the research he undertook with Derain and which made Chatou one of the most active centres of that renewal.

Vlaminck’s work, during that time of important questioning and aesthetic transformations, ought to be considered both through its relation with the postimpressionistic generation that had preceded him (Van Gogh, Gauguin, the Nabis, Cézanne, Signac) and for his tremendous audacity which allowed for all sorts of excess in expressive gesture, colour paroxysm and selective deformation: “I heightened all the tones, I tranposed all the feelings I could perceive into my orchestration of pure colours. I was a tender, wild at heart barbarian” (Dangerous Corner,1929).

With loans from major international institutions such as the MoMA, the Tate, the Centre George Pompidou, as well as numerous private collections (Thyssen Bornemisza, Bürhle etc.) from across the world, this exhibition is the first exclusively dedicated to the artist since his 1956 retrospective at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris.

The exhibit closes on July 20.