“The real plus the impossible” PART 1

For its reopening, the MHAB dedicates its inaugural exhibition to the painter Emmanuel-Charles Benezit, the museum’s first curator.

Emmanuel-Charles Benezit was born in Paris in 1887, into a family sensitive to the world of the arts. He began painting at the age of six and showed an early and rare talent for drawing. He spent his youth in Parisian museums, copying from the great masters of classical painting. The young painter took the habit of sketching in his countless notebooks the world around him.

Benezit left Parisian life in 1915 to settle in Bormes les Mimosas. The South represents for him a true rebirth. The landscapes he discovered became his first source of inspiration. He remained fascinated by the colors and light of the southern sun until the end of his life.

Unknown to the general public, Bénézit left a disconcerting creation of diversity. He imposed no limits on himself, neither in the choice of subjects, technique or style. The only constant in his art is the references to the living. Whether it is in his landscapes or compositions tinged with dreaminess, the painter reveals a powerful imagination that draws its sources from the plant world and the forces of nature.

The works are vivid, colorful, surprising by their expressive force. The exhibition immerses you in the art of Bénézit, marked by his references to a real and observed nature, imagined or drawn from mythological and religious literature.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to loans from the Association des Amis de Bénézit and the Musée des Cultures et des Paysages d’Hyères.