Gustave Fayet, Collector - Creator. Icons of Modern Art

This major project occupies all the spaces of the Fondation Louis Vuitton through a two-part journey—Gustave Fayet as a collector and Gustave Fayet as a creator—revealing the uniqueness of a career where collection, creation, and artistic commitment intersect. The exhibition thus paints a portrait of an essential actor of modernity at the turn of the century who is unjustly forgotten today.

The exhibition is an unprecedented event. For the first time in a century, it brings together more than 250 works from an extraordinary collection, now dispersed throughout the world, and 325 creations by Gustave Fayet, most of which have never been shown to the public and have been restored for the occasion.

The exhibition highlights a collection of 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 is supported by 64 international institutions and 71 private collections.

This unprecedented exhibition unveils a leading personality who was gradually relegated to oblivion: Gustave Fayet (1865-1925), a passionate collector, artist, and prolific creator, was an indefatigable and exceptional entrepreneur, a visionary in the field of decorative arts. Behind this little-known name lies one of the greatest defenders and discoverers of the avant-garde of his time, a man who actively contributed to the emergence of modern art in all its forms. Gustave Fayet was indeed among the first to collect van Gogh, to exhibit Picasso, or to set up a "Gauguin museum" at his home, in the heart of Paris, rich with nearly 200 works, where all the artists and great collectors of the time gathered. A friend and fervent amateur of Redon, he offered him the opportunity to create a large decorative ensemble, which remained secret, in his abbey in the South of France at Fontfroide.

Gustave Fayet is not only an exceptional collector who gathered more than 740 major works of modern art (excluding prints). In the second part of his life, he was also a creator whose success marked the decorative arts of the early 20th century. Painter, watercolorist, ceramicist, decorator, creator of carpets, fabrics, and wallpapers, and book illustrator, he embodies the generation for whom art irrigates all aspects of life. His creations, distributed in the greatest galleries and major salons of his time, seduced figures as influential as Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet, or Jeanne Lanvin. From Art Nouveau to Art Deco, Fayet participated fully in the invention of a new way of life where fine arts and decorative arts fused. For Gustave Fayet, collecting and creating united in the same impetus.
This first international-scale event dedicated to this singular and pioneering figure in many respects unveils a teeming universe and opens a new chapter in modern art and the decorative arts of the early 20th century. This ambitious project brings together a total of 740 works and documents divided between the two parts of the exhibition.