1re Exposition (du 19 mars au 5 décembre 1916) Kisling, Matisse, Modigliani, Ortiz de Zarate, Picasso, Sculptures nègres.

[“ART NèGRE” – PRIMITIVE ARTS] GUILLAUME Paul & MODIGLIANI Amedeo & PICASSO Pablo
1st Exhibition (from 19 March to 5 December 1916) Kisling, Matisse, Modigliani, Ortiz de Zarate, Picasso, Sculptures nègresVery rare original catalogue of the first French exhibition of “Art nègre” judged according to aesthetic, and not ethnographic, criteria.
After Debussy's concert, then the concert of Satie and Ravel, in April 1916, this first artistic exhibition of the Parisian workshop “Lyre et Palette” presented 35 works by the painters Picasso, Modigliani, Kisling, Ortiz de Zarate and 25 “sculptures Nègres” from Paul Guillaume's collection, founder of the Société d'Art et d'Archéologie Nègre et de l'Art Africain. Eric Satie played the piano, in honor of which the catalogue is enriched with two original poems by Cendrars and Cocteau celebrating the modernity of the composer. However, it is mainly thanks to the note, a true manifesto – anonymous, but attributed to Apollinaire – in favor of “l'Art nègre”, that this exhibition would become a major event in the history of Modern Art.
Beautiful copy despite one sign of a horizontal fold in the middle of the catalogue.
Extremely rare.
Thanks to the Trocadéro museum and to several private exhibitions of exotics works, the Parisians were not strangers to the arts of the colonies (in 1913, Charles Vignier revealed around twenty Art nègre statuettes at the closing of his exhibition dedicated essentially to the Asian arts).
However, a unique and scandalous initiative, Lyre et Palette declared the end of the ethnocentric vision of art by presenting Paul Guillaume's collection as equal to the works of modern artists.
Thus, fifteen portraits of Modigliani, so many paintings of whom had never before been gathered together, paintings by Picasso and drawings by Matisse were compared with many Gabon masks, Congo heads and Sudanese idols (it is noteworthy that the styles and ethnicities had not yet been identified).
The only previous attempt at artistic confrontation between Modern Art and African Art took place in New York in 1914, despite the relative absence of African works in the United States at the beginning of the century. In his 291 gallery, Alfred Stieglitz exhibited preparatory drawings by Braque and Picasso together with Koto masks already coming from the collection of... Paul Guillaume.
Former employee in a garage, Paul Guillaume fell in love with African art during a visit in Gabon when discovering a Kota reliquary amid consignments of rubber intended for tire manufacture. He soon became one of the most prominent figures in the interest of the American market for primitive art and notably served as Albert Barnes's advisor. Thanks to him, works still considered in France as “exotic” are in the United States immediately associated with other artists of his collection such as Brancusi, Picabia or Picasso to whom Paul Guillaume was introduced by his friend Apollinaire.
The “Lyre et Palette” exhibition was more ambitious and did not intend to show the sources of inspiration of the exhibited artists, but aimed to re-establish equality between the artistic expressions. Picasso's works are not, incidentally, those from his “African period,” and the works by Kisling or Ortiz de Zarate are barely linked with Africa. The “sculptures nègres” are, therefore, presented here for their aesthetic modernity, just like the cubist investigations of the young painters. Yet, this equality is not only suggested through the proximity of the works, but it is assumed through the typographical composition of the catalogue and affirmed in the introductory note to the sculptures.
It is Jean Bourret, in his article “Une amitié esthétique au début du siècle : Apollinaire et Paul Guillaume” “An aesthetic friendship at the beginning of the century: Apollinaire and Paul Guillaume,” who attributes this anonymous note introducing the collection of his friend, Paul Guillaume, to Apollinaire:
“Art nègre. It is the first time that it is being exhibited in Paris, not for its ethnic or archaeological characteristics, but for its artistic character: the black sculptures that are fetishes in Africa and Oceania. The art from these parts of the world has, these last few years, played a significant role in aesthetic development in France. It is unfamiliar to the masses, the Trocadéro museum is exclusively ethnographical and does not showcase the beauty of the works it exhibits anywhere...”
It is a perfect synthesis of an article by the poet published in 1912. In it he defended “the masterpieces by the African artists” until then relegated to the rank of “crude fetishes, grotesque testimony to ridiculous superstitions” and “exhibited haphazardly at the Trocadéro museum” “almost completely abandoned by the administration to which he belongs.” So, he campaigned for the creation of a “large exotic art museum, which would be for this art, what the Louvre is for European art” (cf. “Exotisme et ethnographie” in Paris-Journal, 10 September 1912).
The initiative will certainly not come from the public authorities who, on the brink of the Great War, have many other worries. It is thus to “Lyre et Palette” that the privilege of the primitive arts' first emergence in the collective consciousness returns. Apollinaire did not fail to participate in this important event and, having just undergone surgery, he opened the exhibition with a reading of his war poems on the evening of 26 November, as Paul Morand testifies in his Journal d'un attaché d'Ambassade:
“Been, rue Huyghens in a Montparnasse workshop, with the cubists. Three hundred people in a little room: cubist paintings on the walls; Jean Cocteau, Mme Errazuriz, Eric Satie, Godebski, Sert, in big driving coats, well-worn fedoras over their noses, as if in a bad place. I see Apollinaire for the first time, in uniform, his head bandaged. The only funny thing is the verse of the little Durand-Viel girl who is five years old.”
Despite Morand's severe judgement – who did not even mention the African sculptures – this first “Lyre et Palette” exhibition in Emile Lejeune's gallery will become a deciding event in the history of Modern Art. It will not only contribute to the aesthetic recognition of the so called primitive arts, but also mark the return of Erik Satie, rediscovered by Cocteau in this same place during a concert on 18 April 1916.
The bond between the artists born out of this avant-garde exhibition will be at the origin of the famous ballet Parade, created in 1917 by Cocteau, Satie and Picasso for Diaghilev and remains “one of the greatest scandals in the entire history of music.”
Significant and extremely rare catalogue-manifesto signaling the end of artistic ethnocentrism.