Art and Artists in Céret
by Debbie Guyol
For a few of the writing workshops we’ve held in Céret we stayed in the apartment of a wonderful British artist, Susanne du Toit – an ideal setting for drinking in the town’s creative spirit. (Bonus: Susanne recently completed a series of portraits of women writers!) The apartment (no longer available, alas) looks out on the magnificent plane trees that have inspired dozens of artists from the early 20th century through the present. Here’s an example, by Chaim Soutine, who lived and painted there for two years.
Wonky and wonderful plane trees by Soutine.
We’ve rented other excellent accommodations for our workshop – and we still love the plane trees. And all the art.
Did we mention that Céret also has an excellent art museum? The Musée d’art moderne de Céret is the perfect size for a museum – not overwhelmingly huge but large enough to house a satisfying permanent collection that includes many paintings of the town itself. It also happens to be France’s national museum of modern art and houses the world’s second largest collection of modern and contemporary art, with 99,000 works by 6,300 artists. Picasso contributed to the founding of the museum and is remembered in various ways around town – a fountain, the Place Pablo Picasso (obviously) and this whimsical plaque stating that Picasso did not live here, in this house.
Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, via Wikimedia Commons
The museum also mounts shows of works by renowned artists of our own era. On a visit in 2018 we were dazzled by the supersized paintings of French Moroccan artist Najia Mehadji.
Here’s a handy on-line summary of the town’s artistic heritage.
Street art photo, just for fun. Céret is full of images like this!
We may not be gifted visual artists ourselves, but we are writers, and we’ve shown our love for the town and its art by incorporating them in our writing – as have some of our workshop students. We are excited to return to Céret and its inspirations for our September writing workshop.