Last year, a museum dedicated to the work of Étienne Terrus revealed most of its paintings were probably not by him. How did it get there?
Odette Traby was dying. It was the summer of 2016 and the sun baked the terracotta roofs of her hometown, Elne, in the south of France, as she lay in bed. Weeks earlier, the 78-year-old had been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. This grande dame of Elne town life had refused all treatment and chosen to tough it out alone. “She was someone who wanted to grapple with, to face up to, death,” says Dani Delay, her niece.
Traby had one consolation. She had spent the previous months trying to secure the future of her life’s work, the town’s art museum. It was dedicated to the work of the local artist Étienne Terrus (1857-1922), a friend of Henri Matisse who had been largely forgotten by the time Traby established the museum in the mid-90s. When nearly 60 Terruses came on to the market in 2015, Traby rallied two local historical associations to raise tens of thousands of euros, securing at least 30 of the works. As her life ebbed, at least Traby could tell herself that her beloved museum was closer to gaining the “Musée de France” status that would give it priority state funding and resources.
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