Un artiste voyageur en micronésie — Musée du quai Branly — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 26 → May 19, 2013

Paul Jacoulet (1896-1960) was a French artist who arrived in Japan in 1899 and lived there for most of his life. In those days, travels were unusual however Paul Jacoulet often went to Korea, China and Micronesia, to draw portraits of the native people, using ukiyo-e print techniques — a Japanese designation meaning “image of the floating world” — favouring depictions of everyday life during the Edo period (1603-1868).

In his prints, watercolours and drawings, the artist represents men and women he encountered, using an approach that is both intimate, aesthetic and ethnographic.

Several major themes are an invitation to travel in his prolific and singular oeuvre: the vision of an artiste ethnographer for whom faraway lands became a daily and intimate reality, the representation of tattoos and jewellery and also of the eroticism that infuses certain portraits.

The exhibition brings together for the first time over 160 exceptional watercolours, drawings and sketches by this artist ; a set of woodblocks used to create prints, objects from the musée du quai Branly and the Natural History Museum in Paris, as well as a series of multimedia programs round off this presentation.

The pieces selected were donated to the musée du quai Branly in 2011 by Thérèse Jacoulet-Inagaki, adopted daughter of Paul Jacoulet, also acting for the three other heirs/donors: Messrs Chisei Ra, Louis Young Whan Rah et Shozo Tomita.

This donation, which will be formalized at the opening of the exhibition on 26/02/13, contains both works of art and personal belongings of the artist.

The donation includes more than 2.000 pieces spread out through sketchbooks, pencil drawings, watercolours and prints; the collection of objects is made up of some forty xylographic plates, various travel souvenirs from Asia and Micronesia (statuettes, masks, costumes) and several decorative objects, mostly from Japan. A series of pencils, brushes and paint pots completes the set and illustrates the work of the artist.