Though largely forgotten today and always discreetly behind the scenes in his own day, Félix Fénéon had an extraordinary impact on the development of modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and played a key role in the careers of leading artists from Georges Seurat and Paul Signac to Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse. The centrepiece of the exhibition will be Signac’s portrait of Fénéon, Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angels, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890 – an important recent acquisition to MoMA’s collection.

The exhibition and catalogue are a collaboration with the Musées d’Orsay/Orangerie (opening October, 2019) and the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (opening May, 2019). The MoMA presentation will combine, distil and augment elements from the two complimentary Paris venues. The Quai Branly focuses primarily on Fénéon’s collection of sculpture from Africa and Oceania, while the Orangerie focuses primarily on European paintings and works on paper.

In 1883 Paul Gauguin abandons his prominent banking career and decides that "from now on I will pai nt every day". The co - founder of Synthetism and trailblazer of Expressionism turns his back on the bourgeois world, leaves his wife and children, and, in 1891, sets out for the South Sea, financing his journey through the sale of thirty paintings. His thou ghts on art, his existential worries, his discovery of color and his search for paradise come to life again in the excerpts from his letters and statements compiled in this volume. Together with some forty color reproductions of his works, his biography, a nd a preface by an expert, the book introduces readers in a very special way to Gauguin's universe.