Pastels du 16e au 21e siècle

Recently, the Petit Palais in Paris, based on its sole collection, gave a glimpse into the wealth of pastels and its various expressions. The Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne will take over from 2 February to 21 May, based on private collections, and bolstered by museums that are wealthy in this type of work. Consequently, the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, the Jenisch museum, the museums of Geneva among others will be contributing to the exhibition. This malleable matter allows the artist to create surprising monochrome symphonies of grey and black (Armand Guillaumin), as well as multicolored explosions (Augusto Giacometti). The more specialized are brought together in this catalogue, from Rosalba Carriera to Sam Szafran, including of course the major player in this field, Degas. While avoiding discoveries such as that by Firmin Baes, with his Jeune Fille au chou (Young girl with a cabbage), the book does not ignore contemporary art which continues, on the margin, to use this old medium, as we can see in the works of Sean Scully or Nicolas Party.

• Pastels du 16e au 21e siècle, directed by Sylvie Wuhrmann and Aurélie Couvreur, La Bibliothèque des Arts/Fondation de l’Hermitage, 2018, 224 p., €49.