Exhibition: François Morellet – L’esprit de suite (bis)

An event organised as part of the celebrations marking the centenary of François Morellet’s birth, on the initiative of the Estate Morellet and the Centre Pompidou.
The story of François Morellet (1926–2016) is closely linked to that of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen. In 2015, the artist – a leading figure in geometric abstraction – was invited to present a selection from the more than four hundred prints he produced during his career, as part of an exhibition entitled L’Esprit de suite. This monographic exhibition, one of the few to focus on François Morellet’s work in printmaking, was to be the artist’s final project. To mark the occasion, the museum commissioned a work from the artist for its façade: *Un angle deux vues pour trois arcs*, whose blue neon line has since become an integral part of the museum’s image.
In 2026, the museum joined forces with 100 X MORELLET, a series of events organised to celebrate the centenary of François Morellet’s birth. The exhibition *L’Esprit de suite (bis)* is intended as a tribute and a nod to this Caen-based adventure. It presents the artist’s main series of prints, from the 1960s to the 2000s, combining system and play – two concepts dear to the man who described himself as ‘the monstrous son of Mondrian and Picabia’. Morellet’s rigorous wit permeates the museum, from the entrance hall (with *3D Ephémère*, a work made of black adhesive tape installed directly on the wall) right through to the exhibition of the collections (with *Giordano défiguré*, a work from the *Défiguration* series specially commissioned for the museum, in the 17th-century Italian gallery).