Post-Impressionist suburbia: Constant Pape's art on display at the Musée de la Carte à Jouer

A native of Hauts-de-Seine, Constant Pape was a painter who loved his region and its rural landscapes. A talented artist, appreciated both in his time and today, Constant Pape is at the heart of the Musée de la Carte à Jouer's new exhibition, on view from February 14 to July 13, 2024.

The exhibition, entitled La banlieue post-impressionniste, brings together numerous paintings, including three large-format works that were exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français. These include Les Brillants à Meudon, the painting that won Constant Pape the Salon's gold medal in 1913. Fields, undergrowth and forests, quarries, rivers and streams: the thousand and one nuances of nature endlessly inspired this painter, an admirer of the Impressionists and the Barbizon school. Ignoring the bustling capital, only a few kilometers away, Constant Pape prefers the tranquility of this rural suburb.

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From an early age, Constant Pape rubbed shoulders with the plein air painters who set up shop at his father's inn in Meudon. In the company of these artists, the young painter developed a lifelong love of landscape art. His palette diversified thanks to a stay at Auvers-sur-Oise, where he followed in the footsteps of the Impressionists and adopted some of their techniques. He learned to capture a moment in nature, to play with light and touches of color...

Much appreciated by his fellow artists of the time, Constant Pape regularly exhibited at the Salon des Artistes français, an annual art show. There, his landscapes of the Ile-de-France countryside were applauded by the Société des Artistes Français. Numerous town halls also commissioned him to create their painted decorations: Noisy-le-Sec, Vanves and Fresnes (although some of his paintings are not visible to the general public).

Come and (re)discover these paintings and their creator, by visiting the Musée de la Carte à Jouer exhibition.