Georges Pompidou's Art Passion Explored at Château de Chambord

An exhibition at the Château de Chambord examines Georges Pompidou's relationship with contemporary art, featuring 90 works by 67 artists. Pompidou, president from 1969 to 1974, was a discerning collector who amassed some 150 works, starting with Max Ernst's La Femme 100 têtes at age 18. His collection included modern masters (Kupka, Braque, Matta), abstraction (Fontana, Hartung, Poliakoff, Bissière, Bram Van Velde), kinetic art (Agam, Bury, Cruz-Diez), Nouveau Réalisme (Deschamps, Klein, Villeglé, Tinguely), and figuration (Nicolas de Staël, Nouvelle Figuration). As prime minister, he hung a Soulages in his office; as president, he commissioned Pierre Paulin and Yaacov Agam for the Élysée. The show juxtaposes his avant-garde taste with his political conservatism, recalling the 1972 Grand-Palais exhibition fiasco where artists protested state intervention. A cabinet of drawings and period documents complements the display.