César la rétrospective — Centre Georges Pompidou — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: December 13, 2017 → March 26, 2018

GALERY 1, LEVEL 6

This retrospective marks the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death. Famous by the age of 25, César enjoyed an artistic career of more than 50 years. He is, however, the last major figure among the Nouveaux Réalistes not to have been accorded a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou. Through more than a hundred pieces displayed in the largest of the Centre Pompidou’s exhibition spaces — among them the most famous of his major works, as well as representatives of lesser-known series — this exhibition will offer an unprecedented overview of the career of one of the greatest sculptors of his time, in all its diversity and coherence.

Born in Marseille in 1921, César began his artistic education there before attending the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In the French capital he met Alberto Giacometti, Germaine Richier and Pablo Picasso, among others, and frequented the artists of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Montparnasse. He very quickly attracted attention with a distinctive personal technique, the welded iron of the human, animal and insect figures that gained him his first solo show, held at the Lucien Durand gallery in 1954. He soon found himself famous, his work exhibited in London and New York.