The painter Maurice Denis (1870-1943) was a great admirer of Eugène Delacroix for both his oeuvre and his approach as an artist. Denis and his artist friends - Émile Bernard, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard then Georges Desvall ières - were born after Delac roix’s death; they acquired their knowledge of the great artist from the works held in public collections, but also through the ntermediary of older artists such as Paul Cézanne, Odilon Redon and Paul Gauguin, who passed on their admiration for the Romantic painter.

Thanks to the publication of Delacroix’s first letters, then the first edition of his /ournal in 1893, Maurice Denis and his friends were the first generation of young artists to have access to Delac roix’s writing, which inspired them for their own theoretical writings and journals. As the president of the Société des Amis d’Eugène Delacroix, Maurice Denis played a crucial role in the preservation of Delacroix’s last studio on Place de Fürstenberg and its conversion into a Delacroix museum. He committed himself wholeheartedly to the project, investing his reputation as a great artist and assuming the role of director of the nascent institution.

The exhibition, supported by exceptional loans from French and international museums and private collections, will be the first to analyse and showcase the strength and scale of Delacroix’s influence on these a rtists who were born after his death. lt will also allow visitors to discover the recent renovation and extension of the museum.

Exhibition curator: Dominique de Font-Réaulx, Musée National
Eugène-Delacroix