Painter of Mediterranean skies and the Orient of the Thousand and One Nights, Félix Ziem was a nomadic, unclassifiable, eccentric artist. An exhibition produced by the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris Musées.

 The son of a tailor who emigrated from Poland, he first chose to study architecture at the Beaux-Arts in Dijon before abruptly breaking away from school and his father. He began his long and prolix career in the 1840s by discovering, dazzled, the Mediterranean and then Venice. A great traveller, friend of the Barbizon painters, admirer of Lorrain and Turner, Ziem occupies an original place in 19th century art. He was able to attract a large clientele who loved to dream of Venice or Constantinople in front of his paintings.

 The painter is evoked here from the places which inspired his quest for an ideal nature, indifferent to the great realist wave which came to shake up landscape art in the second half of the 19th century.

curators: Charles Villeneuve de Janti, William Saadé, scenography et graphism: Atelier Sylvain Roca

photos: Ville d'Évian, La Nouvelle Image