Centre national des arts plastiques - Cnap

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CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL COLLECTION The CNAP is a direct descendent of a department of the Division des beaux-arts, des sciences and des spectacles, formerly the Surintendance Royale, created in 1791. From the very beginning it was endowed with its own budget, separate from that of the national museums, with the specific purpose of encouraging living artists and burgeoning talents by purchasing their works, and occasionally helping artists in financial difficulty. In 1962, a Service de la création artistique, with a broader remit, was set up within the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the Bureau des travaux d’art was incorporated into it. In 1976, all these services were combined under the title Fonds national d’art contemporain, and six years later management of the collection was transferred to the Centre national des arts plastiques. HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS The historical collections feature close to 5,000 artists and over 19,000 works dating from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The majority of the works acquired for this collection are by French artists (3,680 artists). Over 12,200 works are paintings and around 5,000 are sculptures. The graphic arts are represented by some 1,500 works. The remainder of the collection consists of decorative art, photography and architectural drawings. This historic collection illustrates the codified hierarchy that prevailed among arts and genres in the nineteenth century, in the artistic tradition already established by the Academy under the Ancien Régime. The collection demonstrates the important position of the Salon and the art schools of Paris in French and European art, and the tradition of the Prix de Rome scholarship. Commissioned works were typical of artistic practice in the nineteenth century, accounting for over 9,200 works or almost half the purchases made during this period. Part of the historical collection comprises commissions and purchases of official portraits of the various monarchs and heads of state, from Napoleon I to Napoleon III, and symbols and emblems of the French Republic. A large number of copies of paintings by the great French, Italian and Northern masters were deposited in religious and government buildings until the end of the nineteenth century. Many of these works have joined the collections of regional museums, or adorn the walls of the Republic’s residences and official institutions (hospitals, prefectures, churches, law courts, etc.). 6
MODERN COLLECTIONS The modern collections comprise nearly 31,500 works by 9,000 artists, acquired between the early 1900s and the early 1960s. These collections cover painting (15,700 works), sculpture (5,000 works), graphic art (5,000 drawings and 3,600 prints) and decorative art (2,000 works). Compared with the nineteenth century, the decreasing number of commissioned works (3,900 acquisitions) and works purchased at Salons (2,100) reflect the new forms of acquisition that were beginning to hold sway in the twentieth century, such as buying works directly from the artist, and particularly from galleries, as a new sociology of the art market began to emerge. European avant-garde art is represented by the New Objectivity movement (two works by Max Beckmann acquired in 1931 and 1932), and Russian avant-garde art, with two 1936 paintings by Vassily Kandinsky. From 1920 to 1930, the State was attentive to the development of the currents and styles that were part of the artistic debate at this time (such as Art Deco, Return to Order, and colonial painting and sculpture). Other noteworthy purchases were the works and numerous State commissions produced under the Front Popular and in the context of the 1937 World Fair in Paris. Artists from the New School of Paris also feature, with La Partie d’Échecs by Maria-Elena Vieira da Silva being added to the collection in 1943, and Alfred Manessier’s Coqs combattant in 1944. In the post-war period, a number of retrospective purchases took place, including Pépin Géant by Hans Arp (1937), Bal Bullier by Sonia Delaunay, produced in 1913 and acquired in 1953, and works by Pablo Picasso from 1958 onwards. The State also commissioned Henri Matisse to produce the large gouache cut-out La Tristesse du Roi, which was completed in 1953. Many of the works acquired during this period were transferred to the Musée national d’art moderne when the Centre Georges Pompidou was created. 7
Page 2 and 3: CONTENTS 3 Dedicated to Contemporar
Page 4 and 5: A collection that embraces all form
Page 8 and 9: CONTEMPORARY WORKS VISUAL ARTS Sinc
Page 10 and 11: MULTIMEDIA AND VIDEO Comprising som
Page 12 and 13: THE COLLECTION: RESOURCES AND EXPER
Page 14 and 15: Serving national and international
Page 16 and 17: NEW TAKES ON THE COLLECTION Over th
Page 18 and 19: PUBLICATIONS CNAP editorial policy
Page 20 and 21: Supporting artists and arts profess
Page 22 and 23: Research projects funded by the CNA
Page 24 and 25: IMAGE/MOUVEMENT Launched in 2001, I
Page 26 and 27: The CNAP provides advice and guidan
Page 28: Patricia Falguières Chair of the B

Centre national des arts plastiques - Cnap

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