The new adventures of pastel

A partnership agreement has linked the city of Soissons and the Frac Picardie since 2021: four exhibitions have thus taken place, exclusively during the summer periods (2021: Damien Deroubaix and Jan R. Faust; 2022: Alain Séchas; 2023: Julien Beneyton; 2024: François Rouan).

For its fifth chapter, this partnership has given rise to a unique exhibition designed to resonate with current events at the museums of Soissons. From November 7, 2025, to January 25, 2026, the Saint-Léger Museum of Art and History will host "Pastels en partage" (Pastels Shared), an exhibition developed through another partnership with the Reims Museum of Fine Arts, further enhanced by loans from the Antoine Lécuyer Museum and a private collection. This exhibition will juxtapose nearly forty pastels spanning the 18th to the 21st centuries and will be held in spaces renovated for the occasion.

The exhibition

The Arsenal's summer 2025 event will be dedicated to pastels. It will echo a residency by visual artist Pierre Mabille, supported by the Frac Picardie in 2024, which resulted in the publication of the book *Pastel, un reportage* (ed. Frac Picardie/Editions unes, 2024). Mabille has been given free rein to develop an exhibition at the Arsenal Museum, bringing together several of the artists mentioned in his book. Here's what he has to say about it:

“My book, Pastel, a Report, is a subjective investigation into the studios of 12 artists currently working with dry pastel. Inspired by our conversations, the exhibition explores this form of drawing where color plays a dominant role. Emerging artists, established artists, and leading figures such as Joan Mitchell, Ettore Spalletti, Aurélie Nemours, and William Kentridge engage in dialogue within a display of around one hundred works, including site-specific pieces by David Tremlett and Hippolyte Hentgen. By juxtaposing visual languages ​​with ethereal, constructed, or intuitive abstractions, and by combining traditional practices with more iconoclastic and tumultuous ones, The New Adventures of Pastel unfolds a plurality of artistic narratives and visual experiences that liberate pastel from the clichés commonly associated with it. Following on from the book Pastel, a Report, the exhibition recounts the forms, the atmospheres, and the

situations that pastels can produce when certain artists venture into this medium

The heart of the exhibition is inhabited by in-situ works by the duo Hippolyte Hentgen, artists in residence (thanks to the support of the DRAC Hauts-de-France), and David Tremlett, an internationally renowned visual artist whose "drawn walls" are present on all continents.

Featuring works from artists' studios, the Frac Picardie collection, and loans from collectors and galleries, the exhibition offers a glimpse into the rich and varied output of internationally renowned artists and more recent figures on the art scene, such as Andréanne Godin, Guillaume Pinard, Célia Muller, and Stéphanie Mansy. Conceived as an initiatory and progressive journey through the creation of a graphic work, emerging from the line to take shape in different forms and colors, this unique exhibition is an ode to the practice of pastel, its formidable technical and expressive potential, and its undeniable charm.

The artists exhibited

Jean Michel Alberola, Michèle Antoine, Louise Dumas, Andréanne Godin, Hippolyte Hentgen, Iris Kensmil, William Kentridge, Martin Kippenberger, Stanislav Kolibal, Dominique Labauvie, Jean Le Gac, Dominique Liquois, Frédérique Lucien, Pierre Mabille, Stéphanie Mansy, Joan Mitchell, Célia Muller, Aurélie Nemours, Guillaume Pinard, Chloé Poizat, Yves Popet, Ettore Spalletti, Peter Stampfli, David Tremlett, Catherine Viollet