A Visit to Maison Caillebotte, Just Outside Paris

A rapid 20 minutes from Gare de Lyon, Proprieté Caillebotte’s evolution continues with tender loving care. Until September 2019, the Caillebotte Estate hosts an exhibition by German artist Markus Lüpertz (born 1971), whose idiosyncratic paintings and sculptures seamlessly blend figuration and abstraction. The summer exhibition, “Oser La Peinture,” curated by art philosopher Prof. Dr. Danièle Cohn, follows on from the 2015 major retrospective devoted to Lupertz by the Museum of Modern Art Paris, and more recently the “In the Workshop” sculpture exhibition at the Musée de la Vie Romantique. Showcased in the airy contemporary space of Caillebotte’s Ferme Ornée, you’ll find bold, textured, colorful paintings and drawings from the beginning of Lüpertz’s artistic life to his most recent works. A giant of his generation, Lüpertz positions German painting at the beating heart of the art world, alongside the likes of Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, AR Penck, and Jörg Immendorff. His inspiration comes via artists he admires tracing – on canvas and with his sculptures – the cultural movements of his time. Lüpertz dares! A crowd-stopping 1963 Donald Duck opens the show. Liquid paint flows, rapid brush strokes, splashes and dashes, primary colors (reds, yellows, blues) betray the fast, frenetic pace of production and mass consumption of pop culture from which, he seems to say, there’s no escape. Stand in awe in front of Rückenackt, four naked backs (it reminds me of Matisse)– a powerful parade of naked, muscled men, wide and straight, robust warriors at attention – their heads are missing – welcome to the Lüpertzian universe! Soldier’s helmet, shovel, wehrmacht cap, turtle shell, the beautiful backs display a virile, martial strength, the heavy bodies abstractedly disappearing skywards. By the end, in the zen of the white painted attic, where some of Lüpertz’s drawings punctuate the walls, I understand and admire the artist, and head outside… Where the sprawling bucolic parkland and sculpture garden, salutes centuries’ old plane trees, the fragrant walled herb garden, the Chapel, La Glacière. Well worth your attention, the handsome white stucco 1830 neo-classical Caillebotte house, where the artist painted many of his finest works. And, in the romantic Swiss Chalet, Brasserie La Table du Parc produces delicious edible art! I want to live here! You will too. Open Tuesday-Sunday from 14hrs-18.30 Tel: +33 (0)1 80 37 20 61 8, rue de Concy, 91330 Yerres Getting there: By RER D (towards Melun). 10-minute walk from Yerres station. By car, 20 minutes from Paris from Porte de Bercy. For more information, visit www.proprietecaillebotte.com