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 designer. It reveals how collecting, creating, and artistic commitment were deeply intertwined throughout his life, and presents a key figure of turn-of-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 375 of his own creations, most of them never before exhibited and specially restored for the occasion.Highlights include 10 paintings by Vincent van Gogh, 78 works by Paul Gauguin, 88 works by Odilon Redon, as well as paintings and pastels by Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Paul Signac, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse.

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 who has gradually faded into obscurity: Gustave Fayet (1865-1925), a passionate collector, artist and prolific designer who was also a tireless and 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 avant-garde of his time – a man who played a key role in bringing modern art to the forefront 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 740 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 singular and, in many ways, pioneering figure reveals a rich and multifaceted world and opens a new chapter in the history of early 20th-century modern and decorative arts. This ambitious project brings together a total of 767 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, which has not been exhibited in France 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 (1899, 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. 

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. 

The second part of the exhibition takes an equally innovative approach, exploring the many facets of a designer and entrepreneur whose diverse body of work defies categorization. A landscape painter, he found in the diversity of Art Nouveau and Art Deco a vast field of experimentation that fuelled his insatiable curiosity. Over the years, he becomes a designer, immersing himself in every aspect of the decorative arts – as a ceramist, decorator, and designer of rugs, fabrics, wallpaper, and illustrated books – while also founding a fashion house. This remarkable versatility evokes the ‘touchatouism” (Jack of all trades) aspect described by Jean Cocteau. 

Long inaccessible, scattered, or forgotten, his creations are reunited here for the first time. They reveal a vibrant and distinctly modern creative vision, where colour, pattern, and innovation converse with the major artistic movements of his time, shedding light on an essential yet often overlooked chapter in the history of the decorative arts.

Rooted in the late 19th-century Symbolist movement, Fayet played a key role in redefining modern interiors during the Roaring Twenties through ventures such as Maison Della and the Atelier de la Dauphine. Through commissions for Richard Burgsthal’s stained-glass windows at the Abbaye de Fontfroide, as well as his own designs for his Igny, La Dragonne, and Costebrune residences, Fayet cultivated a taste for whimsy which had a softening effect on the sober geometry of 1920s design. He is particularly characterized by his extraordinary floral vocabulary, first sketched on blotting paper and later transformed into fabrics, wallpaper, and rugs. 

In 1896, Gustave Fayet launched his first venture in the decorative arts. Together with the painter and sculptor Louis Paul (1858-1922), a former student of Rodin, he founded a stoneware workshop in Béziers. By 1904, the workshop had produced more than a hundred ceramic pieces, several of which were exhibited at Siegfried Bing’s gallery in Paris in June 1898. 

Around 1912, after nearly a decade-long hiatus, Gustave Fayet returned to painting. As an artist, he was profoundly transformed. The tightly controlled aesthetic of his early Languedoc landscapes gave way to strange forms sketched in watercolor on blotting paper, where flowers seemed to emerge from an abstract, indeterminate world. These works soon became his visual signature, and later appeared in wallpaper, fabrics, and rugs. 

In 1920, Gustave Fayet founded the Atelier de la Dauphine in Paris to transform the designs from his own “blotting papers” into rugs. Featuring botanical motifs free from geometric ornament, his rugs were an immediate success, attracting commissions from clients such as Jeanne Lanvin, Jacques Doucet, and Léon Losseau. Conceived as paintings, Fayet’s rugs were exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, the Pavillon de Marsan at the Louvre, and the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. 

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, inspired by his connections with Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, and Jeanne Lanvin, have also been traced and restored. 

With the exhibition “Gustave Fayet, Collector - 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.

To showcase this extraordinary universe – comprising more than 767 works and archival materials presented across 28 sections throughout the galleries – 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, the exhibition brings Gustave Fayet’s many worlds to life – his homes, collections, and creative endeavors. Unfolding through a sequence of distinct environments, it explores Fayet’s many identities – collector, patron, designer, and entrepreneur – while revealing the underlying coherence of his vision. Each section focuses on evocation rather than reconstruction, capturing 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 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
assisted by Yulia Kokurkina and Michèle Kieffer

Angeline Scherf, Associate Curator, Fondation Louis Vuitton
assisted by Cordélia de Brosses and Charlotte Lange

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