From March 22 to June 9, 2025, the Fondation Maeght presents a monographic exhibition dedicated to Hélène Delprat, specifically designed for the ground-floor galleries of the historic building.
History and the history of art — including key artists associated with the Fondation Maeght — subtly permeate the work of Hélène Delprat, a major figure in the contemporary art scene. Her works have been in dialogue with those of these great masters for many years within the Fondation Maeght’s collection.
The exhibition delves into the world of Hélène Delprat, whose unique history intertwines with that of the Fondation Maeght.
At the age of 16, she discovered Giacometti and Malraux’s Imaginary Museum at the Fondation, leaving such a lasting impression that she still recalls it vividly in her current exhibition.
The poetic title of the exhibition, borrowed from Alfred Jarry, sets the tone: “Listen! It’s the eclipse.” This showcase offers the best of Hélène Delprat’s personal and shared history through a journey of over sixty works, tracing her singular adventure. Often favoring unconventional paths over assured success, she took the road less traveled. Upon leaving the École des Beaux-Arts, her stay at the Villa Médicis and her entry into the prestigious Galerie Maeght seemed to promise a clear trajectory. However, she chose to complicate her life by challenging the obvious, avoiding success, and ultimately withdrawing from the spotlight—though she never stopped painting, lamenting the struggles it entailed.
Her art is haunted by the ghosts of history (particularly war) and art history (from Piero della Francesca to William Hogarth, from Ad Reinhardt to Paul McCarthy) as well as by popular and familiar imagery. She avidly collects press images, La Gazette Drouot, and comics from yesterday and today. She constantly prints, photocopies, and classifies. As for traumatic episodes in her life, she prefers to render them as cryptic puzzles. Her inclination to mock even the darkest moments imbues her work with vitality, humor, and profound emotion.
The exhibition features more than sixty paintings, drawings, sculptures, films, photographs, and ceramics, organized into eight sequences. Two original sculptures, designed specifically for the Fondation Maeght’s pools, set the tone right at the entrance.
Through a daily practice that combines drawing, painting, photography, archives, and video, she develops a body of work filled with self-mockery—a kind of book of hours, both dark and sensitive, where fiction and documentary coexist. She is intrigued by the idea of a humorous, monstrous, excessive, melancholic death. Her real or fictitious interviews, radio drawings, Musée des Titres, and collection of articles complement her inventory of a world that is both accidental and intentiona
