The exhibition from 22 March to 9 June 2025 explores the world of Hélène Delprat, whose original story intersects with that of the Fondation Maeght. At the age of 16, she discovered Giacometti and Malraux’s Imaginary Museum there, which left a lasting impression, recalled even in her current exhibition.

The poetic title of the exhibition, borrowed from Alfred Jarry, sets the tone: “Listen! It’s the Eclipse”. The best of Hélène Delprat’s personal and shared history is presented through a journey of over sixty works that trace a unique adventure: often choosing the less trodden path over the assured royal road, starting with her time at the École des Beaux-Arts, followed by a residency at the Villa Medici, and her debut at the prestigious Galerie Maeght. 

Always fond of complicating life by shattering the obvious, she fled from success, disappearing yet continuing to paint, all the while lamenting the difficulty of her path. In her joyful anger, finding almost everything dreadful, she amuses herself with trifles and reinterprets everything she deeply loves in art, literature, cinema, and daily life— from media, cafés, hotels, to walks. Her art, haunted by the ghosts of history (particularly war) and art history (from Piero della Francesca to William Hogarth, from Ad Reinhardt to Paul McCarthy), is equally influenced by popular and familiar images. She avidly collects press images, Gazette Drouot clippings, cartoons from past and present, constantly printing, photocopying, and archiving. Traumatic episodes in her life are often encrypted into rebuses. Her propensity to turn the worst into derision renders her art vibrant, truculent, humorous, and profoundly moving.

Image: Hélène Delprat, Untitled (detail), 2024, pigment, acrylic binder, and glitter on canvas, 250 x 200 cm © Hélène Delprat, Adagp, Paris, Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Christophe Gaillard, photo: Rebecca Fanuele