Exhibition from March 21, 2025 to September 14, 2025

Pioneer of Neo-Impressionism and a cornerstone of anarchist and libertarian circles, Maximilien Luce (1858–1941) left a lasting mark on his time through his profound artistic and political commitments.

As a painter of urban and rural landscapes and the human condition, he captured the social and industrial transformations of his era.

Beyond the humanistic quality that gives heart to his work and defines it as a whole, landscape is the other dominant theme that animates his painting throughout his life.

Luce captures light and color, revealing the beauty of landscapes with a unique sensitivity.

This exhibition, the first Parisian retrospective dedicated to Luce since 1983, highlights the artist’s work, aiming to reaffirm his significance and introduce his often-overlooked work to the general public

Maximilien Luce belonged to this pivotal generation, which experienced both the splendor of the Belle Epoque and social unrest, benefiting from numerous technical advances and suffering just as much at the time of the First World War. Deeply marked by the Paris Commune, which he witnessed as a young man when he was 13, Luce fought three wars and many social battles (against child prisons and colonization, in favor of workers' strikes, for Dreyfus, etc.).

Above all, Luce's rich historical period corresponded to a fantastic artistic ferment. The Luce comet joined the neo-Impressionist constellation formed by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro and Henri-Edmond Cross at his first exhibition, at the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1887. From then on, he took part in the post-impressionist adventure and contributed to the defense of artistic freedom, first as a member, then as vice-president and president of this society.

In 65 years of work, Maximilien Luce left a corpus of almost 4,000 paintings and as many drawings and prints compiling some of the key events of his era (major floods, mobilization, urban works, circuses, etc.).

Throughout his career, idealized bathing scenes coexist with Parisian building sites, and the almost menacing profiles of Belgian factories in the age of industrialization. The city, factories and nature thus offer fertile ground for experimentation. Variable lighting, dynamic perspectives and vivid colors transfigure the landscape. The twilight scenes and climatic effects created by Luce contribute to the visual metamorphosis of urban centers and the representation of the crowds that inhabit them.

Works collected from French and foreign institutions (Musée d'Orsay, Musée de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Mantes-la-Jolie, Musée Lambinet à Versailles, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi, Musée d'Ixelles, Association des Amis du Petit Palais de Genève, etc. ), galleries and private collections reveal the landscape talent of Luce, who was a great admirer of his elders Nicolas Poussin and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, and whose love of nature culminated in the Rolleboise countryside before his death in 1941.

With this exhibition, the Musée de Montmartre presents an immersion into the life and work of Maximilien Luce. This retrospective aims to restore recognition of this neo-impressionist painter. His link with Montmartre, where he lived on rue Cortot in particular, remains inseparable from his artistic career. The Musée de Montmartre, which he so often depicted in these landscapes, is delighted to pay tribute to him today, 125 years after his departure from this emblematic place.