Victorien Sardou — Spiritisme — Loevenbruck Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 20 → October 26, 2024

Loevenbruck gallery inaugurates its new space with a first exhibition dedicated to the work of Victorien Sardou (1831-1908), precursor of spiritualist art, whose pioneering approach to spiritism was acclaimed by André Breton in a seminal text published in the journal Minotaure¹ in 1933.

This new place, with its rediscovered architecture, pays homage to the Surrealist gallery from 1926. Its window display is immortalized by a photograph taken by Man Ray in around 1927, and held at the Centre Pompidou.

Victorien Sardou was born in Paris. Forced to give up his medical studies for lack of funds, he earned his living by teaching and at the same time began writing his first plays.

Although he went on to enjoy some noteworthy successes, the early days were difficult, and it was probably when one of his manuscripts was rejected, in 1857, that he began to take an interest in spiritism — to which he seems to have been introduced by his father.

He made several drawings and prints involving the principle of automatism and said he was guided by the spirit of the Renaissance ceramist Bernard Palissy, the eponymous hero of one of his plays.² This exhibition presents an ensemble of six original drawings, along with two remarkable prints, from private collections. These works are put in context by handwritten documents about spiritism which have never been seen before.

¹ In “Le message automatique,” Minotaure, nos. 4–3, 1933.

² Read more