Gustave Fayet: Collector - Designer. Icons of Modern Art

Occupying all the spaces of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, this major exhibition is presented in two parts, examining Gustave Fayet both as a collector and as a artist designer. It reveals how collecting, creating, and artistic commitment were deeply intertwined throughout his life, and presents a key figure of turnof-the-century modernity who has long been unjustly overlooked.

An exhibition unprecedented in scale and scope, it brings together for the first time in a century more than 250 works from Gustave Fayet’s extraordinary collection, now dispersed around the world. They are presented alongside 374 of his own creations, most of them never before exhibited and specially restored for the occasion.

The result of several years of research, the exhibition has been made possible through the collaboration of 64 international institutions and 71 private collections. This groundbreaking presentation sheds new light on a prominent figure: Gustave Fayet (1865-1925), a passionate collector, artist and prolific designer who was also an exceptional entrepreneur and a visionary in the field of decorative arts.

Though little known today, Fayet was one of the most influential advocates and pioneers of the avantgarde of his time – across its many forms au lieu de in all its forms. He was among the first to collect works by Van Gogh, to exhibit Picasso, and to establish a Gauguin “museum” in his home in the heart of Paris, housing a collection of nearly 200 works and attracting artists and leading collectors of the time. As a close friend and devoted champion of Odilon Redon, Fayet gave him the opportunity to create a monumental decorative ensemble for his abbey in Fontfroide in southern France – a remarkable work which remained largely unknown for many years. Not only was Gustave Fayet an exceptional collector who assembled more than 750 major works of modern art (excluding prints), in the latter part of his life, he was also a designer whose success left a lasting mark on the decorative arts of the early 20th century.

A painter, watercolorist, ceramicist, interior designer, designer of rugs, fabrics, and wallpaper, and book illustrator, he represented a generation whose life was permeated in all its aspects by art. His designs, exhibited in leading galleries and major art fairs, attracted influential figures including Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, and Jeanne Lanvin. From Art nouveau to Art Deco, Fayet played a key role in shaping a new aesthetic in which fine art and decorative art seamlessly merged. For Fayet, collecting and creating went hand in hand.

This first major international exhibition dedicated to this pioneering figure reveals a rich and multifaceted world, opening a new chapter in the history of early 20th century modern and decorative arts. This ambitious project brings together a total of 728 works and documents, presented across the exhibition’s two sections.

Examples of works being shown in France for the first time

One of the highlights of this exhibition is the return to France of Vincent Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, which has not been exhibited in the country since 1937 and has not been loaned for an exhibition since 1990. Painted in the aftermath of the dramatic break between Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh, this deeply moving work depicts an artist who is wounded yet determined to continue painting. It is presented together with Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with a Palette, bringing together two radically different visions of the modern artist in an unprecedented dialogue.

The exhibition brings together The Yellow Christ (1889, Buffalo AKG Art Museum), Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ (1890-1891, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and Le Calvaire Breton (1889, Musées royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels), all of which were once owned by Gustave Fayet and his close associates George Daniel de Monfreid and Maurice Fabre. Three paintings and three collectors from southern France, united by their shared passion for Gauguin, come together in a unique constellation centered on self-portraiture – one that testifies to the decisive role that Fayet played in enhancing the artist’s public recognition. This is the first time these three works have been brought together in France.

Another highlight of the exhibition is the presentation of the decorative panels that Odilon Redon created for the library of the Cistercian Abbaye de Fontfroide, which Fayet acquired in 1908 with the intention of restoring and transforming it into a “total work of art.”

The panels remain carefully preserved there today. For the first time, Day, Night, and Silence – true statements of Redon’s artistic vision – are being revealed to the general public. For Fayet, the work and friendship of the Symbolist painter helped pave the way towards a suggestive and spiritual conception of art that deeply nourished his own creative practice.

A rich collection of his works brought together for the first time: 49 ceramics, 17 design drawings, 87 watercolour blotting-paper designs, 15 paintings, pastels, and gouaches, and 10 illustrated books including the 42 plates he created, based on Mireille, the Provençal poem by Frédéric Mistral as well as his final album, Fleurs.

In 1896, Gustave Fayet launched his first enterprise in the field of decorative arts. Together with the painter and sculptor Louis Paul (1858–1922), a former student of Rodin, he founded a stoneware workshop in Béziers that produced over a hundred ceramic pieces until 1904. Their initiative was quickly rewarded: in June 1898, Fayet presented a few experimental stoneware pieces to Siegfried Bing, which captivated the Parisian gallery owner, then at the forefront of decorative experimentation.

Around 1912, after nearly a ten-year hiatus, Gustave Fayet picked up the paintbrush again: the artist had undergone a profound transformation. The controlled universe of his early Languedoc landscapes gave way to strange forms, emerging in a floating and undetermined world on the borders of abstraction. “A beautiful blot can be the starting point for a beautiful drawing,” he noted, harnessing the accidents of the encounter between watercolor and blotting paper to bring forth a profusion of flowers from the very material. These works soon became his visual signature, which he would later adapt into wallpapers, fabrics, and carpets.

In 1920, Gustave Fayet founded the Atelier de la Dauphine in Paris, dedicated to transforming into carpets the “thousands of documents, drawings, and watercolors” he had accumulated since his first blotting-paper works in 1912. His carpets met with immediate success among art enthusiasts — Jeanne Lanvin, Jacques Doucet, Léon Losseau, the Kapferer brothers, Robert de Rothschild, and even the Maharajah of Indore. This production was part of a project to renew interior decoration, contrasting traditional geometric motifs with a botany freely inspired by plant and aquatic forms: “No more geometric lines, no more symmetry, no more repeating bouquets of flowers [...] but fantasy. We can never have enough of it in our works.” Each carpet could thus be read as a painting.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Fondation Louis Vuitton has undertaken major restoration projects, including the carpets created for the Maison Léon Losseau in Mons (Belgium) – a masterpiece of Art nouveau – as well as a set of preparatory pattern drawings, revealing a remarkable aspect of Fayet’s production process. Some 10 dresses, showing his connections with Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, and Jeanne Lanvin, have also been traced and restored. With the exhibition “Gustave Fayet, Collector - Artist Designer,” the Fondation Louis Vuitton brings to light a forgotten chapter in the history of modern art and the decorative arts – the fascinating world of a man whose entire life seems to have been guided by the words of his friend André Suarès: “He did everything with art”.

Sylvie Patry, “conservatrice générale du Patrimoine” (General Heritage Curator) and an internationally recognized specialist in late 19th and early 20th century art, is the chief curator of the exhibition and is directing the catalogue devoted to Gustave Fayet’s collection. Angeline Scherf, curator at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, is responsible for the section dedicated to Fayet as a designer as well as its accompanying catalogue.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton has invited Robert Carsen to create a sensitive and immersive exhibition design. Through a subtle interplay of atmosphere, color, and spatial design, he exhibition brings Gustave Fayet’s many worlds to life – his homes, collections, and creative endeavors. Unfolding through a sequence of distinct environments, revealing Fayet’s many identities – collector, patron, designer, and entrepreneur – while preserving the underlying coherence of his vision. Each section catpures the richness and diversity of his world.

Two books, co-published with Gallimard, will explore the many facets of Gustave Fayet as both collector and designer, while a publicly accessible database will catalogue approximately 740 works and 100 prints identified to date in his collection, highlighting its richness and diversity. An international symposium will further this ambitious research project.

Two books, co-published with Gallimard, will explore the many facets of Gustave Fayet as both collector and designer, while a publicly accessible database will catalogue approximately 740 works and 100 prints identified to date in his collection, highlighting its richness and diversity. An international symposium will further this ambitious research project and the exhibition will be accompanied by a musical programme exploring the connections between Fayet and the composers of his time.

Sylvie Patry, Guest Chief Curator, Chief Curator at the Musée d’Orsay
in collaboration with Yulia Kokurkina, exhibition assistant,
and Michèle Kieffer, research and scientific coordination officer

Angeline Scherf, Associate Curator, Fondation Louis Vuitton
in collaboration with Cordélia de Brosses, Project Officer
and Charlotte Lange, Exhibition Assistant

Exhibition design
Robert Carsen, Artistic Director of the exhibition

The exhibition was produced in collaboration with the Association Musée d’Art Gustave Fayet Fontfroide

With the exceptional support of the Musée d’Orsay
With the exceptional participation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France