Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Pont-Aven Museum, located in the Finistère in Brittany, was created in 1985 to celebrate the artistic heritage of the Pont-Aven School and Paul Gauguin. The latter, who arrived in 1886, developed with Émile Bernard synthetism and partitionism, attracting painters such as Paul Sérusier and Charles Filiger. The museum, renovated between 2013 and 2016, doubles its surface to accommodate permanent collections and temporary exhibitions.

The origin of the museum dates back to 1939, when Mayor Felix Le Louët inaugurates a commemorative plaque on the Gloanec Pension, a place where artists stay. In 1953, a retrospective for the 50th anniversary of Gauguin's death marked a turning point, with La Belle Angèle's exceptional loan from the Louvre. The Association des Amis de Gauguin (1960) and the Association of the Friends of Gauguin (1961) organize annual exhibitions, preparing the construction of the museum, inaugurated in 1985.

The museum is structured around four floors: the ground floor houses a resource centre on the Pont-Aven School, while the upper floors feature temporary exhibitions, permanent works (Gauguin, Bernard, Serusier) and themes such as japonism or the Nabis. In 2016, the Orsay Museum became a partner, lending six major works, including Village Breton under the snow of Gauguin. The interior garden, inspired by painted landscapes, completes the scenography.

The permanent collection, initially empty, now includes 4,500 works (paintings, engravings, pastels) covering 1870-1900. Among them, 14 works by Gauguin, including Deux Têtes de Bretonnes (1894), acquired in 2003. The museum also showcases lesser-known artists such as Marie Luplau or Carl Moser, as well as the deposits of the Musée d'Orsay or Quimper. The temporary exhibitions explore various themes, from Breton prints to travel artists.

Since 2012, the museum has been managed by Concarneau Cornouaille Agglomeration. Its attendance reached 94,044 visitors in 2018. Successive curators (Catherine Puget, Estelle Guille des Buttes-Fresneau, Sophie Kervran since 2020) have enriched acquisitions and partnerships, such as that with Google Arts & Culture. The resource centre, with 6,000 documents, makes it a research hub on Breton art.

The School of Pont-Aven, born from the stays of Corot (1862) and then Gauguin (1886-1894), marked the history of art by its rejection of the classical perspective in favor of pure colours and marked contours. The museum perpetuates this memory, while opening up to contemporary art, as evidenced by recent exhibitions on Vivian Maier (2022) or travelling artists (2023).

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