Exhibition guide

The Montmartre Museum has the honor of presenting, for the first time in France, a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Otto and Adya van Rees, major but still little-known figures of the European avant-garde of the 20th century.

Visit details

  • Dates: From Friday March 20, 2026 to Sunday September 13, 2026: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
  • Venue: Musée de Montmartre, 12, rue Cortot, Paris
  • Price: payant
  • Audience: All audiences
  • Source: Event page

About the exhibition

Through a chronological journey, the exhibition highlights the richness, modernity and evolution of their works while analyzing the crossed influences and the fruitful artistic dialogue which nourished their research. It is also 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 life intertwines, nourishes and inhabits their creative work, like the birth of their three children or the family tragedy that afflicts them.

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

Their trajectory testifies to an open and resolutely international plastic research - as evidenced by their presence and common contribution to the birth of the Dada movement in Zurich, to the founding of the Cercle et Carré group in Paris, as well as their numerous trips to Europe. Their approach reveals a great formal freedom, inscribed at the heart of the European avant-gardes.

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 journeys, from Divisionism to Cubism via cloisonnism, 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.