PAINTING THE FRENCH RIVIERA
Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London WJ 0BD
02 Oct 2026 - 31 Jan 2027
@royalacademyarts
REVIEW by KATHLEEN BONDAR
Opening with a fascinating fact - the writer Stephen Liegeard coined “Côte d’Azur/Blue Coast” in 1887 to describe the French Riviera - this autumn’s RA blockbuster is peppered with anecdotes and quotations surrounding the region and the artists selected. The exhibition brings familiar masters and their works to the public in a revelatory and prolific way. Artists include The Fauves: Matisse, Derain & Braques and plenty of Picasso whose painting: Two Women Running on the Beach (1922) covers a sizeable wall with the accompanying video Dance: Le Train Blue (Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes Re-imagined) performed by the English National Ballet in 2025. “Painting the French Riviera” is a banquet for lovers of Impressionism and Modernism.
Understandably, the sun, sea and carefree lifestyle of the Riviera fed the self-expression and creative drive of many artists. It was “a summertime playground” before and after WW1 and, during the Second World War it was a “free zone” from Nazi occupied Paris.
There are so many breathtaking works on display in gallery after gallery all of which have been painted in pertinent shades of blue to evoke the Azur of the skies and seas in the South of France - all except the final gallery in which Yves Klein’s “Anthropometries” are sited in the classic white cube.
Claude Monet, Morning at Antibes, 1888; Paul Cézanne, Bathers, 1890-92; Raoul Dufy, Golfe Juan, 1927
From the illustrious lineup it must have been difficult to select centrepieces. Les Isles d’Or (1891/92) by Henri-Edmond Cross and Untitled Anthropometry (1960) by Yves Klein both warrant their place. Les Isles d’Or is a particularly sublime piece using the Pointillist technique. The dark blue of the gallery wall offsets the delicate blues of the seascape whilst Klein’s striking choice of blue in his works (IKB - International Klein Blue) simply requires a white backdrop.
The Russian emigre, Nicholas de Stael’s work is justifiably given a sizeable place. His abstract seascapes seem so simple and yet the composition and impasto brush strokes convey so much. The Fort Carre, Antibes (1955) is a perfect example. Without detail or attempts at realism, it literally paints the French Riviera, thus summing up the exhibition.
