François Morellet

2026 marks the centenary of the birth of François Morellet (1926-2016). To commemorate it, the Centre Pompidou-Metz presents a retrospective in 100 works ranging from 1941 to 2016 — the most comprehensive retrospective to date of François Morellet.

Morellet is unique in that he was both the leading French figure of geometric abstraction and the one who most decisively contributed to destabilising it. Through the selected works, this major retrospective explores the ambivalence between reason and unreason, between the legacy of Francis Picabia and that of Piet Mondrian, whom the artist liked to refer to.

Within the 1,200 square metres of Galerie 3 of the Centre PompidouMetz, the exhibition offers the public the chance to experience this ambivalence through two chronological paths, from Morellet’s early pictorial experiments from the 1940s, rarely shown until now, to his baroque neon works from the 2010s. The first path reveals Morellet’s work within the prevailing rules and the glories of pictorial materialism. The other path focuses on Morellet’s optical irrationality and Neo-Dadaist distance. One of these two aspects alone would have been sufficient to establish Morellet’s historic grandeur. From April 3 to September 28, 2026, the Centre Pompidou-Metz will therefore offer visitors the chance to see the two sides of Morellet’s greatness.