Eugène Grasset
L’art et l’ornement

Renowned as a master of the new generation after his 1894 exhibition at the Salon des Cent, the Vaudois Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) exerted a major influence on the revival of decorative arts in France at the turn of the 19th century. His career reflects a desire to assign ornamental art, of which he provided the theory, a unifying role in reconciling fine arts and the applied arts.

Settled in Montmartre in 1871, he began his career at the Chat Noir cabaret. His meeting with the printer and collector Charles Gillot was pivotal, leading him to participate in the revival of furniture design, illustrated books, and posters. Grasset believed in the future of art only through a return to nature observation and the teachings of the past. A cabinetmaker’s son and avid reader of rationalist architectural theorists, particularly Viollet-le-Duc, he combined archaeological erudition with a deep knowledge of materials, using these to support his vision of art for all, integrated into everyday objects (tapestry, ceramics, stained glass, jewelry).
Open to neo-medieval, Japonist, and Symbolist currents, Grasset exhibited at the Salon de la Rose+Croix, La libre esthétique in Brussels, and the Vienna Secession. He triumphed in 1900 at the Paris Exposition Universelle, where he showcased jewelry designed for Henri Vever. The creator of the famous Semeuse emblem of the Larousse editions, Grasset also designed a typographic alphabet: the Grasset typeface. His increasing involvement in teaching and theoretical work (La plante et ses applications ornementales, 1896 and La méthode de composition ornementale, 1905) further solidified his role as a guiding figure, admired by Alfons Mucha, Augusto Giacometti, Maurice Pillard-Verneuil, and Paul Berthon.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a richly illustrated book was published under the direction of Catherine Lepdor, featuring texts by Marie-Eve Celio-Scheurer, Danielle Chaperon, Philippe Kaenel, Hugues Fiblec, Rossella Froissart, Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, Jean-François Luneau, Anne Murray-Robertson, Odile Nouvel-Kammerer, Evelyne Possémé, François Rappo, and Nicholas-Henri Zmelty. Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Milan, Editions 5Continents.

The exhibition benefited from exceptional loans from private and public collections.