The exhibition proposes a visual and documentary exploration of the artistic and intellectual universe of Tristan Tzara, bringing together portraits created by representative artists of the historical avant-garde and twentieth-century Surrealism. The curatorial approach highlights his biography, his Romanian origins, his international intellectual network, as well as his decisive role in the formation of the Dada movement and the European avant-garde. The exhibited material includes reproductions of documents, portraits, and photographs from the research collections of the Centre Pompidou, signed by artists such as Marcel Janco, Hans Arp, Brassaï, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso.
A distinct section of the exhibition is dedicated to the visualization of the Dadaist method of poetic creation formulated by Tristan Tzara—the cut-up poem—illustrated through a conceptual wall composed of collages and textual fragments. The exhibition route is complemented by the screening of a documentary produced by Radio-Canada, dedicated to the personality of Tristan Tzara. Throughout the exhibition, guided tours will be organized for students and the interested public, accompanied by an educational program concluding with a practical workshop on collage and Dadaist portrait, based on the method formulated by the artist.
The importance of Tristan Tzara in the history of modern art is defined by his dual role: on the one hand, his creation as a poet, playwright, and performer; on the other hand, his activity as an editor, manifesto writer, and organizer of avant-garde artistic life. As a collector, he assembled a remarkable corpus of photographs, drawings, and collages created by artists from around the world, many of which were obtained through exchanges or donations, in a spirit specific to the international artistic community of the time. Born Samuel Rosenstock, Tzara spent the First World War in neutral Switzerland, where, in 1916, he founded the Dada movement in Zurich. In this context, he constructed an eccentric artistic identity, assuming the role of a true impresario of the international avant-garde. At the Cabaret Voltaire, together with Hans Arp, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Marcel Janco, and Sophie Taeuber, he organized evenings of “artistic entertainment” in which the boundaries between the arts were deliberately dissolved: engravings by Pablo Picasso coexisted with fantastic masks, while vaudeville songs dialogued with the rigor of the modern compositions of Arnold Schoenberg. At the same time, Tzara contributed to the creation of an international network of avant-garde artists connected through the circulation of accessible, rapid, and experimental publications, among which the multilingual magazine DADA occupies a central place. Although he proclaimed the radical rupture of Dadaism from artistic tradition and established values—embracing negation, absurdity, and nonsense—Tzara remained deeply rooted in the intellectual horizon of Cubism, which he continued and reinterpreted. Thus, as early as 1916, he considered that “simultaneous poems” represented a natural extension of Picasso’s collages. In 1931, he published one of the first substantial studies dedicated to Cubist collage in Christian Zervos’s journal Cahiers d’Art and maintained a constant intellectual dialogue with theorist and art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, whom he met in Bern around 1917. For the Dadaglobe project (1920–1921), Tzara invited fifty international artists to contribute to a large encyclopedic publication, a project later abandoned for both practical and personal reasons. The collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art today preserve photographs by Man Ray and Christian Schad that belonged to him, and in 1923 Tzara acquired Picasso’s Head of a Man(1912), adding it to a significant collection of collages. The Kahnweiler auctions of that period brought together major figures of the European avant-garde such as André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Le Corbusier, paradoxically forming one of the most important “exhibitions” of Cubism.
The present exhibition brings together a selection of portraits of Tristan Tzara created by leading artists of the historical avant-garde and Surrealism, works that reconstruct the image of Tzara and reveal the complex network of artistic and intellectual relationships that defined the European avant-garde.
The exhibition is organized with the support of the Embassy of France in Beijing, the Education and Culture Section, the French Institute in Beijing, and the Alliances Françaises network, within the Francophone Welcome Group in China, of which ICR Beijing is a member.
Selection of works presented in the exhibition:
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, drawing, 1919 — by Francis Picabia (Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia) (1879, France – 1953, France), collection: Centre Pompidou, Paris
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara (Samuel Rosenstock, 1896–1963), French poet, animator of the Dada movement”, drawing, c. 1916 — by Francis Picabia (1879–1953), collection: Centre Pompidou, Paris
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara (Mask)”, 1919, cardboard, burlap, ink and gouache — by Marcel Janco (1895, Romania – 1984, Israel), Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1916, charcoal on heavy paper, 46 × 30 cm — by Marcel Janco, depicting the poet reading on the stage of the Cabaret Voltaire, one of four known representations from the Dada period in Zurich
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara (1896–1963)”, oil on cardboard — by Marcel Janco, private collection
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, c. 1916, graphite on paper, 665 × 400 mm — by Marcel Janco, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; gift of Ruth Burger, USA, in memory of her brother Benjamin Golin; © Dvora Janco, Tel Aviv
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1927, oil — by Lajos Tihanyi (1885, Hungary – 1938, France), collection unknown
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1927, lithograph, 60.7 × 44.8 cm — by Lajos Tihanyi; inscriptions: lower left “50-18 L. Tihanyi”, lower right in plate “L.TIHANYI Paris 927”
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, pen and black ink with blue crayon on paper — by Moise Kisling (1891, Poland – 1953, France), private collection
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1924, oil on canvas — by M. H. Maxy (1895, Romania – 1971, Romania), National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara (Samuel Rosenstock, 1896–1963)”, 1923, oil on cardboard, 104.5 × 75 cm — by Robert Delaunay (1885–1941), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
- “Tristan Tzara”, c. 1960–1965, technique unspecified — by Hugo Valentine (Gross Valentine, 1887–1968), Centre Pompidou – Musée national d’art moderne, Paris; photo credit Centre Pompidou, inv. 4N61283
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1922, ink and pencil on paper, 12 × 8 cm (printed area), 45 × 78 × 4 cm (framed) — by Serge Charchoune (1888–1975), Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), France, inv. FM000268
- “Tristan Tzara”, photograph — by André Kertész (Kertész Andor, 1894–1985), Centre Pompidou, Paris
- “Tristan Tzara (photographic series)”, c. 1920–1930 — by Man Ray (1890–1976), Centre Pompidou, Paris / various collections
- “Tristan Tzara”, c. 1920, photograph — by Man Ray, various collections / photographic archives
- “Tristan Tzara”, c. 1920–1930, photograph — by Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957), Centre Pompidou (Brancusi Studio), Paris
- “Tristan Tzara”, 1932, photograph — by Robert Doisneau (1912–1994), various collections / Atelier Robert Doisneau, Paris
- “Tristan Tzara (1896–1963)”, c. 1930, drawing — by Henri Martinie (1905–1983), Roger-Viollet Archive, Paris; © Henri Martinie / Roger-Viollet
- “Marcel Duchamp, Constantin Brâncuși, Tristan Tzara and Man Ray in Brâncuși’s studio”, 1921, photograph — by Arthur Harfaux, various collections / archives
- “Constantin Brâncuși, Tristan Tzara, Berenice Abbott, Mina Loy, Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson in the studio”, c. 1922, photograph — by Man Ray, Centre Pompidou, Paris
- “Editorial office of the magazine ‘Contemporanul’ (Tristan Tzara, M. H. Maxy, I. Vinea, Jacques Costin and Teodor Solacolu), Bucharest”, 1915, photograph — author unknown, National Museum of Romanian Literature (MNLR), Bucharest
- “Tristan Tzara”, drawing — by Marcel Janco, MNLR, Bucharest
- “Tristan Tzara”, 1949, work on paper — by Alberto Giacometti (1901–1966) & Tristan Tzara, private collections
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, c. 1925, drawing — by Henri Martinie, Roger-Viollet Archive, Paris
- “Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, c. 1930, drawing — by Victor Brauner (1903–1966), various collections
- “Le Cœur à gaz”, July 1923, color lithographs, 44.8 × 20 cm — by Sonia Delaunay & Tristan Tzara, edition of 150 copies (this copy no. 125)
- “La Face intérieure”, 1953, color lithograph — by Fernand Léger & Tristan Tzara, private collections
- “Tristan Tzara with Hans Arp and Hans Richter”, c. 1916–1920, photograph — author unknown
- “Saint-Germain-des-poètes”, 1953, brown ink on paper — by Tristan Tzara, private collections
- “Sketches and Self-Portrait”, November 26, 1952, ink on paper — by Tristan Tzara, private collections
- “3 papillons DADA”, 1919, print — by Paul Éluard (1895–1952), after Tristan Tzara, various collections
- “Parler seul”, 1948–1950, artist’s book with lithographs — by Tristan Tzara & Joan Miró, Paris, Maeght Éditeur
- “L’Antitête”, 1933, artist’s book with illustrations — by Tristan Tzara & Pablo Picasso, Cahiers libres, Paris
- A selection of drawings and sketches by Tristan Tzara, discovered in the Jacques Doucet Library, Paris
The exhibition may be visited from Monday to Friday, between 10:00 and 16:00, at the headquarters of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing (Galaxy SOHO). Admission is free; however, registration is required for the opening event by scanning the QR code below. For further information, please contact us at: ema.stoian@icr.ro.
We look forward to welcoming you!
