The Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing announces the opening of the exhibition  "Tristan Tzara 130 — Inventor of the Avant-Garde" takes place on Friday, March 20, 2026, at 11:00, at its headquarters in Galaxy SOHO, on the occasion of the International Day of La Francophonie. Open from March 20 to April 16, 2026, the exhibition marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Tristan Tzara (1896–2026), a founding figure of the European avant-garde. It brings together a remarkable selection of portraits of Tristan Tzara created by leading artists of the historical avant-garde and Surrealism, works that reconstruct his image and reveal the complex network of artistic and intellectual relationships that shaped the dynamics of the European avant-garde.

Portrait of Tristan Tzara

“Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1927, oil — by Lajos Tihanyi (1885, Hungary – 1938, France), collection unknown

The exhibition proposes a visual and documentary exploration of the artistic and intellectual universe of Tristan Tzara, bringing together portraits created by representative artists of the historical avant-garde and twentieth-century Surrealism. The curatorial approach highlights his biography, his Romanian origins, his international intellectual network, as well as his decisive role in the formation of the Dada movement and the European avant-garde. The exhibited material includes reproductions of documents, portraits, and photographs from the research collections of the Centre Pompidou, signed by artists such as Marcel Janco, Hans Arp, Brassaï, Alberto Giacometti, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso.

“Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, drawing, 1919 — Francis Picabia (Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia) (1879, France – 1953, France), collection: Centre Pompidou, Paris“La Face intérieure”, 1953, color lithograph — by Fernand Léger (1881, France – 1955, France) & Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), prints & graphic art, private collections“Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, ca. 1916, graphite on paper— Marcel Janco (1895, Romania – 1984, Israel), The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; gift of Ruth Burger, USA, in memory of her brother Benjamin Golin; © Dvora Janco, Tel Aviv“Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, pen and black ink and blue crayon on paper — by Moise Kisling (1891, Poland – 1953, France), private collection

A distinct section of the exhibition is dedicated to the visualization of the Dadaist method of poetic creation formulated by Tristan Tzara—the cut-up poem—illustrated through a conceptual wall composed of collages and textual fragments. The exhibition route is complemented by the screening of a documentary produced by Radio-Canada, dedicated to the personality of Tristan Tzara. Throughout the exhibition, guided tours will be organized for students and the interested public, accompanied by an educational program concluding with a practical workshop on collage and Dadaist portrait, based on the method formulated by the artist.

“Le Cœur à gaz”, July 1923, color lithographs, — by Sonia Delaunay (1885, Ukraine – 1979, France) & Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), original edition of 150 copies (this copy: no. 125)“Portrait of Tristan Tzara (Samuel Rosenstock, 1896–1963)”, 1923, oil on paperboard— by Robert Delaunay (1885, France – 1941, France), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

The importance of Tristan Tzara in the history of modern art is defined by his dual role: on the one hand, his creation as a poet, playwright, and performer; on the other hand, his activity as an editor, manifesto writer, and organizer of avant-garde artistic life. As a collector, he assembled a remarkable corpus of photographs, drawings, and collages created by artists from around the world, many of which were obtained through exchanges or donations, in a spirit specific to the international artistic community of the time. Born Samuel Rosenstock, Tzara spent the First World War in neutral Switzerland, where, in 1916, he founded the Dada movement in Zurich. In this context, he constructed an eccentric artistic identity, assuming the role of a true impresario of the international avant-garde. At the Cabaret Voltaire, together with Hans Arp, Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings, Marcel Janco, and Sophie Taeuber, he organized evenings of “artistic entertainment” in which the boundaries between the arts were deliberately dissolved: engravings by Pablo Picasso coexisted with fantastic masks, while vaudeville songs dialogued with the rigor of the modern compositions of Arnold Schoenberg. At the same time, Tzara contributed to the creation of an international network of avant-garde artists connected through the circulation of accessible, rapid, and experimental publications, among which the multilingual magazine DADA occupies a central place. 

“Dada Artists, Group Photograph”, 1920, Paris, photography — author unknown, historical avant-garde / various collections

Although he proclaimed the radical rupture of Dadaism from artistic tradition and established values—embracing negation, absurdity, and nonsense—Tzara remained deeply rooted in the intellectual horizon of Cubism, which he continued and reinterpreted. Thus, as early as 1916, he considered that “simultaneous poems” represented a natural extension of Picasso’s collages. In 1931, he published one of the first substantial studies dedicated to Cubist collage in Christian Zervos’s journal Cahiers d’Artand maintained a constant intellectual dialogue with theorist and art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, whom he met in Bern around 1917. For the Dadaglobe project (1920–1921), Tzara invited fifty international artists to contribute to a large encyclopedic publication, a project later abandoned for both practical and personal reasons. The collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art today preserve photographs by Man Ray and Christian Schad that belonged to him, and in 1923 Tzara acquired Picasso’s Head of a Man(1912), adding it to a significant collection of collages. The Kahnweiler auctions of that period brought together major figures of the European avant-garde such as André Breton, Paul Éluard, and Le Corbusier, paradoxically forming one of the most important “exhibitions” of Cubism.

“Tristan Tzara”, ca. 1960–1965, medium unspecified — by Hugo Valentine (also known as Gross Valentine, 1887, France – 1968, France), Centre Pompidou – Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle, Paris; photo credit Centre Pompidou“Portrait of Tristan Tzara”, 1922, ink and pencil on paper— by Serge Charchoune (1888, Russia – 1975, France), Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), France“Parler seul”, 1948–1950, artist’s book with lithographs — by Tristan Tzara (1896, Romania – 1963, France) and Joan Miró (1893, Spain – 1983, Spain), Paris

The present exhibition brings together a selection of portraits of Tristan Tzara created by leading artists of the historical avant-garde and Surrealism, works that reconstruct the image of Tzara and reveal the complex network of artistic and intellectual relationships that defined the European avant-garde.The event is organized with the support of the Embassy of France in Beijing, the Education and Culture Section, the French Institute in Beijing, within the Francophone Welcome Group in China, of which ICR Beijing is a member.

About the Exhibition

Dates: March 20–April 16, 2026, from Monday to Friday, between 10:00 and 16:00

Venue: The Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing (Galaxy SOHO)

Courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing, edited by CAFA ART INFO.