HG Ibels, a committed Nabi du April 4 au 26th July 2026

This first retrospective, the result of several years of research and extensive scientific work, invites us to rediscover, through more than 230 works, a multifaceted artist: painter, poster artist, illustrator and chronicler of his time, considered at the end of the 19th century as a leading figure and today unjustly unknown to the general public.

Close to Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, or Vuillard, Ibels distinguished himself through his vision
Sharp in his observations of society, capturing the effervescence of music halls, bustling streets, and popular scenes, his work, marked by a great freedom of expression and graphic modernity, bears witness to the evolution of the visual arts at the dawn of the 20th century. The exhibition highlights his iconic posters, his illustrations for the satirical press, as well as his paintings, drawings, models, and theatrical costumes, revealing a committed and inventive artist.

H.G. Ibels' multidisciplinary career is astonishing in its richness and variety. A founding member of the Nabis group, he wielded both pen and brush like Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis, his fellow students at the Académie Julian. He became known for his talents as a draftsman, lithographer, and poster artist, much like his friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Throughout his life, he distinguished himself through the press, hence his nickname "the journalistic Nabi."
With a background in applied arts and a fondness for the union between the arts, he became a collaborator of the stage director and theatre manager André Antoine, and also distinguished himself as a professor of art history and costume history, even becoming head of the Ibels workshop for theatre costumes and disguises at the Printemps store.

But it is above all his unwavering commitment to the social struggle that posterity has remembered, particularly his action in the Dreyfusard struggle, with the creation of the magazine Le Sifflet, and his topical drawings published in the press of the time, which led him to write at the end of his life in his memoirs: "My weapon: the pencil".

Exhibition co-produced with the Maurice Denis departmental museum in St-Germain-en-Laye