Exhibition from March 20 to September 13, 2026

The Musée de Montmartre is honored to present, for the first time in France, a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Otto and Adya van Rees, major but still little-known figures of the 20th-century European avant-garde. 

Through a chronological journey, the exhibition highlights the richness, modernity, and evolution of their works while analyzing the cross-influences and fruitful artistic dialogue that nourished their research. It also provides an opportunity to follow the life journey of Otto and Adya: that of a man and a woman who loved each other, that of two artists who devoted themselves to art and whose intimate daily lives intertwined, nourished, and inhabited their creative work, such as the birth of their three children or the family tragedy that tested them.

Originally from the Netherlands, where they met, Otto van Rees (1884–1957) and Adya van Rees-Dutilh (1876–1959) settled in Montmartre, at the Bateau-Lavoir, in 1904. There they frequented Georges Braque, Kees van Dongen, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso, with whom they developed the foundations of modernity.

Their career path reflects an open and resolutely international artistic quest, as evidenced by their presence and joint contribution to the birth of the Dada movement in Zurich, Otto's involvement in the founding of the Cercle et Carré group, and their numerous travels throughout Europe. Their approach reveals a great formal freedom, at the heart of the European avant-garde.

Through around a hundred works from French, Swiss, and Dutch public and private collections—paintings, graphic arts, embroidery, sculptures, decorative arts projects, and more intimate family creations—the exhibition follows the couple's life journey and traces the evolution of their respective artistic careers, from Divisionism to Cubism, through Cloisonism, to the most accomplished forms of abstraction.

Offering a major discovery of their works, which have remained in the shadows for too long, this exhibition aims to rehabilitate the bold and experimental contribution of Otto and Adya van Rees, and highlights the place they each occupy in the history of modern art.