Flourishing spring

We welcome spring and the flourishing of exhibitions in Venice between March and April with Renoir’s Hiker, an impressionist masterpiece that shall serve as the emblem for the new season of the M9 Museum in Mestre: Arte Salvata. Capolavori oltre la guerra dal MuMa di Le Havre. This exhibition holds significant symbolic value, the meeting point where history and future speak the same language of rebirth and sharing. It will also take place on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Arte Salvata (lit. ‘saved art’) symbolizes a passing of the baton between Le Havre, a UNESCO World Heritage city and pioneer of post-war revival, and Mestre, which was also a strategic target and was heavily bombed in 1944. Today, Mestre needs again some regeneration force. At its core of this momentum is pure art, transcending centuries and creating a dialogue between two contemporary museums, each unique in their architecture and history.

On one side is the MuMa – Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux in Le Havre, home to one of the richest collections of impressionist art in France after Paris. The citizens and authorities of Le Havre worked to preserve this cultural heritage, saving 80% of the art from destruction as their city was being shelled, knowing how important is the role of culture and museums in the rebirth of a city. On the other side is the M9, which serves as a laboratory for the memory of twentieth-century Italy and Europe, continuously evolving like the history it reflects.

An extraordinary selection of works from the MuMa reflects historical coherence and exceptional circumstances – Claude Monet grew up in Le Havre, which became a key stop in Impressionist geography – and comprises the MuMa’s loan to M9. This collection forms the core of Arte Salvata, which has been curated by Géraldine Lefebvre, Director of MuMa, Marianne Mathieu, a leading expert in impressionism and post-impressionism, and Serena Bertolucci, Director of M9. The exhibition will open on March 15 and will showcase fifty essential impressionist artworks, dating from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, by prominent artists such as Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Gauguin, Dufy, Marquet, Boudin, and Braque. Notable pieces include Monet’s The Seine at Vétheuil, The Cliffs at Varengeville, and The Houses of Parliament, as well as Renoir’s The Hiker and Sisley’s The Seine at Point-du-Jour.

A section of the exhibition will feature photographic and documentary insights into the events in Mestre following the devastating bombing on March 28, 1944, and the recovery efforts that began in the post-war period for residential and industrial areas.

Featured image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Hiker, 1888 c. (detail)
Le Havre, Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux © MuMa Le Havre / David Fogel