Temporary exhibitions 2025

A stone’s throw from the Anne-de-Beaujeu Museum, stands the keep built around 1400 by Louis II of Bourbon and the remains of the main building from the end of the 15th century commissioned by Peter II, Duke of Bourbon and his wife, Anne, daughter of the King of France, Louis XI. After experiencing the splendor of the ducal court, the keep was transformed into a prison in 1775. It remained in this use until 1983 and experienced the dark hours of the Second World War during which resistance fighters and collaborators succeeded one another in its dungeons. Within a renewed tour, come and discover “An ordinary day at the court of Anne-de-France”, an original digital creation allowing you to discover the daily life of the ducal court at the end of the Middle Ages.

The museum is dedicating a temporary exhibition to the artist Dick Bruna.
Dick Bruna’s name is primarily associated with the character of Miffy, the famous white rabbit now found in museum shops, bookstores, and toy stores. A Dutch artist who spent most of his life in the Netherlands, Dick Bruna was born in 1927 and died in 2017.
His style, infinitely free of all artifice, and his concise palette owe much to the artists he discovered as a young adult, frequenting Parisian museums. Matisse, in particular, was instrumental in developing his striking, simple, and powerful style.
Dick Bruna produced over 120 picture books, not to mention the crime novel covers he designed early on. Translated and published in more than 50 languages, he is a discreet man, with a refined style, who has won the hearts of children for more than 70 years, whom the museum gives you the opportunity to discover.

As part of the scientific year dedicated to the Bronze Age, the Anne-de-Beaujeu Museum is offering a major retrospective exhibition on the discoveries made in the Allier region between the 18th and 21st centuries during this period.
The Bronze Age (-2500/-800) was a period of significant technical innovation and social change. From this period onward, our current societies began to shift. Economy, crafts, housing, society, beliefs… All life strategies were transformed, just like the metal that gave it its name. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was invented even though the minerals used to create it were not found in the same place. Exchange and experimentation were the necessary ingredients for its development.
The Allier region already emerged as an economic, cultural, and social crossroads. The presence in the Bourbonnais region of objects made from exotic materials such as Baltic amber, transalpine glass, and manufactured objects from the eastern Mediterranean indicates contact with very distant areas. At the same time, certain motifs, such as the “solar boat,” are found in objects discovered in Charroux and La Ferté-Hauterive, or on the famous Nebra disc discovered in Germany, implying the sharing of beliefs on a European scale.
For this occasion, the National Archaeology Museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye is lending the deposits discovered in Rongères and Jaligny-sur-Besbre, never before exhibited in the Allier region. The Jenzat site, excavated using the latest archaeological techniques, will be highlighted, with the presentation of previously unseen objects discovered since 2020.
The exhibition is complemented by a “children’s trail” with texts and adapted activities. This exhibition will be extended by a catalog and enhanced with a cultural program (guided tours, a series of lectures, specific workshops, etc.).
The exhibition has been awarded the “National Interest Label” 2025, which allows it to highlight and support remarkable exhibitions organized in the regions. This recognizes the national significance of the exhibition, as well as the exemplary scientific and museographic qualities.

As part of the 370th anniversary of the founding of the Souvigny glassworks, the museum is dedicating its 2025 temporary exhibition to the company.
Through testimonies from former glassmakers, original pieces from the factory, and tools, this exhibition showcases this industrial heritage. It immerses visitors in the past of this company, which worked for shipping and airline companies, including Air France and its famous Concorde, as well as for grand hotels such as the George V.

The exhibition explores the various Romanesque, Gothic, and modern periods, using little-known works that are nevertheless listed as Historic Monuments. Among the works on display: the 12th-century Virgin in Majesty, the Romanesque enclosure, and a group of 15th-century statues, the crown jewel of which is the restored Saint Mary Magdalene.

This exhibition aims to present exceptional works, tell the story of the site from the 10th to the 19th centuries, and discuss its candidacy for UNESCO World Heritage status. An educational tour will be developed for family visits and schools.

Exhibition as part of Souvigny’s candidacy for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Explore the history of Grès d’Art Méténier, creators of the famous Gannat blue, and their place in the evolution of ceramics, between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Thanks to exceptional loans from renowned museums, follow the thread of this ancient art to its contemporary expressions.

107 years after the signing of the armistice, the exhibition “Remnants and Memory of the Great War” highlights the material traces left by the 1914-1918 conflict, often buried in the soil of former battlefields.
Through a selection of period objects and documents, the Corgenay Memorial Association invites us to discover relics recently unearthed, sometimes decades after the end of the fighting: military equipment, weapons, graves, trench handicrafts, and more. These are all witnesses to the past that reveal the war strategies and technological advances of the time.
This exhibition highlights the importance of collective memory and the preservation of historical heritage, while also questioning how we perpetuate the memory of the sacrifices made during the First World War.

This year, the Historial du Paysan Soldat is dedicating a temporary exhibition to women’s commitment during the two world wars, highlighting their active participation in the war effort, both on the front lines and in civilian life.
During the First World War, women worked in factories, hospitals, and agriculture, supporting the war economy. Their commitment intensified during the Second World War: occupying diverse positions from industry and healthcare to espionage and resistance missions, they made a decisive contribution to the military effort, permanently transforming their traditional role in society.
Photographs, testimonies, objects, and archival documents bear witness to their contribution, illustrating both their presence in weapons factories and medical services and their involvement in domestic and agricultural spheres. By overcoming the challenges imposed by these periods of conflict, they profoundly disrupted social norms and redefined their status, thus marking a significant shift in the history of gender relations. Through portraits of often little-known Bourbonnais resistance fighters, the exhibition reveals journeys marked by courage and sacrifice, bearing witness to an essential commitment that has long remained in the shadow of history.

Collections from the Le Temps du Rêve gallery, Pont Aven.

In the Central Desert, Arnhem Land, and Kimberley, Aboriginal artists are reinventing contemporary abstract painting. Pointillism from the Central Desert, flat colors from the Kimberley, and bright bark from Arnhem Land—these artists, old cowboys and desert divas, paint their country. While understanding eludes us, the sensation touches us. Pure colors, a sense of composition, the paintings are vibrant and intense. Their visual beauty is an invitation to discover these Aboriginal worlds and their initiates, the artists. For the paintings tell of a belief shared by different groups: the Dreamtime. The exhibition celebrates the pioneers of various artistic communities in the Central Desert, Papunya, Yuendumu, with Clifford Oppossum Tjapaltjarri and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Michael Nelson Jagamarra and then the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) region in the north of South Australia, notably with Mick Wikilyiri. There are many women artists, including Kathleen Petyarre at Utopia, Judy Watson Napangardi and Maringka Baker. Some painters are innovative in their plastic experiments, such as Tommy Watson, Barney Campbell Tjakamarra and Minnie Pwerle.
The Kimberley is a wonderful discovery, with the painted panels by Churchill Cann and Beerbee Mungnar Joongoorai, from Rover Thomas’s Dreaming. Finally, the older painted bark from Arnhem Land recalls the region’s ancient rock painting tradition. Everyday and ritual objects, including Dinny Kunoth’s initiate statuettes, spirit representations, ceremonial poles, and musical instruments, further explore the exhibition’s themes and complement a scenography enhanced with multimedia.

In an interactive scenography, you will experience the universal dimension of the exhibition. To begin, the Wheel of Protection offers luck, love, fertility, power… It’s up to the visitor to associate these requests with amulets and talismans from various sources. The search for protection is timeless and global, as humans are aware of the passage of time and the dangers that threaten them.
Thus, protective objects, statuettes of protectors, and recourse to specialists demonstrate the human desire to control one’s destiny.
Different visions of the world and the body produce unique techniques of prevention and care. In China, the body is a miniature model of the cosmos; it is treated holistically. The aim is to promote the proper circulation of energies. Science and classical Chinese medicine, religion, and magical rituals intertwine, testifying to a world filled with connections. The names are numerous, the roles different: shaman, medicine man, healer, ombiasy, etc. Contemporary portraits present these men and women who continue to be the link between the worlds, seeking help for the living from invisible entities.
It’s up to you to spot the odd ones out on these superhero posters from Benin, South Africa, Ethiopia, and India! The codes of representation are universal.
These modern-day superheroes, however, come from their own unique and ancient culture; they are transmitters of traditions. These protectors have an educational purpose: in comics and on television, they explain the past to young people and embody solutions to societal problems.
When the game is over, characters and fabulous animals accompany the deceased into the afterlife. Archaeological objects from China illustrate this constant desire for protection, even after death.
Then, ancestors represented by statuettes and reliquaries from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon remind us that everywhere, dialogue continues between the deceased and their descendants. Ancient and contemporary civilizations on display: China, India, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Madagascar, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Algeria, and Niger.
This exhibition showcases the museum’s collections and new donations. Thanks to Anne Depigny, a great friend of the museum, for her loans.

This commemorative exhibition will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the return from captivity of farrier Fernand Mathieu. You will discover the wartime correspondence between the farrier and his wife, Edith Guillaumet. This exhibition is the result of extensive work carried out by the museum following a donation from Mrs. Guillaumet.

In a casino, you gamble… but not just for money. From their development (at the end of the first half of the 19th century) to the present day, French gambling establishments have always focused on music. But why exactly do they give it such an important place? In which venues is it played? What repertoires are presented to customers? And who are the musicians who perform there? By bringing together for the first time a series of printed, audio, and audiovisual documents from all French casinos, “Faites vos jeux!” (Play Your Games! Musical Life in French Casinos, 19th-20th Century), answers these questions recently addressed in a book of the same name coordinated by Martin Guerpin and Etienne Jardin (Faites vos jeux! La vie musicale dans les casinos français, XIXe-XXe siècle, Actes Sud/Palazetto Bru Zane, 2024).
This exhibition addresses a triple challenge: to compare the musical programming offered by casinos; highlight the impressive diversity of music played there (from classical music to electro music and jazz); and explain the evolution of the casino “soundtrack” from 1850 to the present day.
So many sometimes forgotten realities that this exhibition reminds us of in images… and in music!

One hundred years ago, on March 29, 1924, Josette Bournet gave birth to a baby girl named Josette, like her mother. To mark this anniversary, the Josette Bournet Museum is presenting some forty works—pastels, drawings, and sculptures—created by Josette Bournet, her daughter.

The Josette Bournet Museum continues its chronological exploration of the painter’s work with an exhibition devoted to the years 1950-1953.
The artist painted in oils, glue, or egg whites, on wood, hardboard, fiber cement, or cardboard. The exhibition features numerous portraits; around ten seascapes; around fifteen still lifes, in three series—Vase and Bouquet, Poultry on a Table, and the still lifes with two lapwings that the artist composed in the winter of 1953, in which we can read a farewell message to her deceased husband; compositions articulating these different motifs; a large female nude, painted in the studio of sculptor Boris Bernstein, who himself was working on a sculpture based on this same model; preparatory work for the compositions exhibited by the artist at the Salon d’Automne in 1952: The Farmyard and The Peasant Meal, paintings now lost, which feature farmers from Châteldon…

This year’s exhibition is dedicated to the masterpieces of the Compagnons. The Compagnons of the Tour de France in Lyon have agreed to make available masterpieces from several building trades.

By artists REPY ONE, Pierre XZXZ, WARO, KEYMI, MOTTE, and DEFT from the Le Soute Collective

Whether on the surface or beneath the surface, the walls of the Prisoner Tower still bear traces of its former function as a prison. By confronting this history while naturally drawing parallels with that of graffiti, six street artists (REPY ONE, Pierre XZXZ, WARO, KEYMI, MOTTE, and DEFT), notably from the Vichy collective Le Soute, will present an original and atypical exhibition, both inside and outside the walls, inspired by the urban art movement. Closely linked to the Palimpsest (medieval scrolls whose earliest writings have been erased to make way for a new text), this exhibition will offer a true dialogue between the past and the present, where the physical and sensory boundaries of the site will be transformed into veritable platforms for artistic expression. Paintings, lighting installations, and scenography will combine to explore the history of art and space, creating a vast, living canvas at the intersection of traces and memories.

Exhibition opening: Friday, May 16 at 6:30 p.m.

Since summer 2023, the rural museum has been taking its visitors back to the Mesozoic era with a most surprising collection of fossils. Imagine yourself a few million years ago, at the time of the Diaceratherium lemanense (rhinoceros), Palaelodus ambiguus (Flemish), and Diplocynodon rateli (crocodile) in Montaigu-Le-Blin…
This exhibition was made possible thanks to Rhinopolis and the Natural History Museum of Paris. They enabled the museum to develop an unusual and attractive presentation, showcasing a wide range of fossils found in Montaigu-Le-Blin.

Popular stories about wolves, fantastic creatures, linked to architectural heritage (castles, abbeys, fountains, etc.) and natural heritage (rivers, springs, etc.).

Since the competition’s creation in 1924, Joseph Pajot and Claude Pimpard, luthiers in Jenzat, have been recognized as among the “Meilleurs Ouvriers de France.” Several artisan luthiers had already garnered multiple awards in the 19th century: gold, silver, and bronze medals at major exhibitions. Excellence continues in the 21st century with a new MOF (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and a world-renowned living heritage. Will you be able to reach the Museum to discover all these masterpieces? Interactive tour. Films in the auditorium.

Join us on Saturday, August 9th for a celebration of clay and stained glass work!