For Albert Kahn, the harmony of the world rests on knowledge and understanding between peoples. Between 1898 and 1929, the banker created several foundations, which today are striking for their modernity: the Around the World scholarships, which anticipated the Erasmus program; the Archives of the Planet, a vast visual inventory deployed from 1912 in a Europe on the threshold of the First World War; or the National Committee for Social and Political Studies, a true think tank before its time.
This diversity reflects his commitment: that of a man convinced that justice, law, knowledge, and dialogue between nations are the conditions for lasting peace. His journey as a pacifist was shaped by the debates that animated the Third Republic and the conflicts that marked it: the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the First and Second World Wars.
By transmitting the legacy of Albert Kahn, the museum thus contributes to keeping alive a work which, well beyond its time, continues to inspire our relationship to the world and to otherness, and to nourish civic reflection on the conditions for a just and lasting peace.
The exhibition draws heavily on the museum's collections (autochrome and black-and-white photographs, films, archives, and objects), including some of its major pieces, such as Lucien Le Saint's film En diriger à sur les champs de bataille (By Dirigible on the Battlefields ), recently digitized in high definition from the original reels. Other works are being shown for the first time, such as the furniture from the *Autour du Monde* society, an association of recipients of travel grants created by Albert Kahn, and the only writing signed by the patron, * Des droits et devoirs des gouvernements* (The Rights and Duties of Governments ).
It is enriched by numerous heritage loans (graphic artworks, paintings, sculptures, archives and documentation) from institutions such as the Army Museum, the Rodin Museum, and La Contemporaine. The exhibition thus opens with a monumental canvas by the painter Édouard Detaille and closes with L'Illusion, sœur d'Icare (The Illusion, Sister of Icarus ), a marble by Rodin that belonged to Albert Kahn, returning to Boulogne for the first time since the banker's ruin.
Contemporary works by Charles Fréger, Laurent Grasso, Calvin Marcus, Yan Morvan, Sophie Ristelhueber, Société réaliste, François Vermot and Luke Watson respond to this historical corpus, revealing the resonances of the subjects evoked in today's world.