Modern art

The MASC possesses two major collections: Gaston Chaissac (1910-1964) and Victor Brauner (1903-1966). Chaissac was a complete artist, painter and writer. He experimented with all types of media: paper, manila, slate, corrugated cardboard, sheet metal, wicker, etc. His resourcefulness makes him one of the most original 20th-century artists. Brauner, of Romanian descent, compiled a dreamlike universe in the surrealist vein. His series Mythologies et La Fête des mères (Mythologies and Mothers’ Day, 1965) is striking in its strange blend of modernity, alchemy, humour and sexuality. Victor Brauner, a friend of René Char and Roberto Matta, made Les Sables d'Olonne his summer abode.

The seaside resort of Les Sables d'Olonne regularly played host to artists, one of the most notable of whom being the Fauve painter Albert Marquet, the guest of his friend Jean Launois: L'été, la plage des Sables d'Olonne (Summer, the Beach of Les Sables d’Olonne, 1933) gives a colourful vision of the beach studded with tents and bathers.

The painter Jules Lefranc (1887-1972) deserves a special mention. Lefranc spent his life revisiting with quite metaphysical ingenuity the photographic plates he himself produced. Let us also acknowledge the prodigious artist Jean Launois (1898-1942) whose sketches from life immortalised the daughters of the Kasbah and the peasants of Vendée.

The artwork collection, composed of drawings, prints, watercolours, gouaches and collages, is exhibited on a rotational basis. Donations such as those from the Launois family, Charles and Pierrette Sorlier (1980 and 1983), Vincent Bioulès (1990), Henri Bassmadjian (1990), J.-M. Paupert and C. Bokanowski (for Henri Dimier, 2005 and 2009) have all contributed to its enhancement.