Aimé Césaire, Lam, Picasso — Nous nous sommes trouvés — Les Galeries nationales du Grand Palais — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 16 → June 27, 2011

The exhibition celebrates the 70th anniversary of the seminal meeting between poet Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) and painter Wifredo Lam (1902- 1982), who were “instantly taken in by each other” as the poet said and “two brother artists” in the words of the painter. Alongside the canvases, etchings and drawings by Lam, the exhibition features engravings and a painting by Picasso, a painting anddrawings by André Masson (musée Cantini, Marseille), as well as works and documents by Jean Pons, Henri Guédon and Daniel Buren inspired by Césaire’s poems and writing.

2011 is also the beginning of UNESCO’s four-year tribute to three great twentieth century poets who symbolise the “reconciled universal”: Aimé Césaire, Pablo Neruda and Rabindranath Tagore.

A plaque laid down on 6 April, 2011, during a national hommage to Aimé Césaire, will mark the poet’s entry into the French Pantheon.

An exhibition organised by the Rmn-Grand Palais as part of 2011 Année des Outre-mer. It takes place under the patronage of Monsieur Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic. It will subsequently be shown in Martinique and Guadeloupe.