Following the rediscovery of Antoine Bourdelle's clothing in 2020, the musée Bourdelle explores in a new exhibition the representations and staging strategies of artists through their clothes, from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. The itinerary of L’étoffe de l’artiste is punctuated by little-known garments worn by emblematic or more obscure figures, men and women alike – Gustav Klimt, Rosa Bonheur, Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Sonia Delaunay, Camille Bernier – in dialogue with paintings, sculptures, graphic arts and photographs.
At the end of the 19th century, while most artists posed in black suits, some painters and sculptors used their attire to affirm their membership of a group, while others presented themselves in smocks, overalls or boiler suits, embodying a new ideal of the artist at work.
Dress codes soon multiplied, in the wake of a movement toward singularisation. At the turn of the 20th century, the wardrobe alternately became a revolutionary manifesto, an extension of the creative act, or even an assertion of identity: gender fluidity and play with cross-dressing, the quest for real or imagined elsewheres, belonging or marginality. Artists carefully composed an outfit for themselves and traced recognisable silhouettes for posterity. At the crossroads of art history, sociology and fashion, the exhibition reveals how clothing and accessories shape emblematic figures, embodying the fabric of the artist.
This exhibition is organised with the exceptional support of the musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris and the musée d’Orsay.