![Raoul Dufy’s “La Fée électricité” in the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/la-fee-electricite-titel-300x225.jpg)
A marvellous fairy named Electricity
Created by French artist Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) for the Electricity Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, the monumental mural “La Fée électricité” is a celebration of technological progress.
![The 1937 Paris World’s Fair; view towards the Eiffel Tower. On the left in the picture is the German Pavilion and opposite that the Soviet Pavilion.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/die-weltausstellung-in-paris-von-1937-blick-zum-eiffelturm-300x270.jpg)
![Electricity Pavilion with the beacon of the Ouessant lighthouse.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/pavillon-der-elektrizitat-an-der-pariser-weltausstellung-1937-300x168.jpg)
From silk foulard to monumental painting
![Raoul Dufy ca. 1920.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/raoul-dufy-um-1920-300x267.jpg)
![“The Allies 1914-1915” by Raoul Dufy, printed silk scarf.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/bedrucktes-seidentuch-die-alliierten-1914-1915-von-raoul-dufy-300x281.jpg)
![Raoul Dufy and photographer Thérèse Bonney at work on the fresco “La Fée Electricité”, 1937.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/raoul-dufy-und-therese-bonney-bei-der-arbeit-am-wandgemalde-la-fee-electricite-1937-300x225.jpg)
A naive history of the energised world
![Centre of the painting featuring Paris’s Ivry electric power station, with the Greek god Zeus above that.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/fee-electricite-centre-300x189.jpg)
![In the upper part of the fresco Dufy painted the history of human labour, from agriculture…](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/fee-electricite-landwirtschaft-300x225.jpg)
![…to the modern industrial society.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/fee-electricite-industrie-300x225.jpg)
Radio as the crowning achievement of electrification
![Thanks to electricity, radio listeners were able to listen to an orchestra playing: these possibilities were still brand-new in the 1930s.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/fee-electricite-orchester-300x161.jpg)
The virtual “Fée électricité”
The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris has recently launched a virtual presentation of the “Fée électricité”, with detailed explanations in French and English of the people and inventions depicted.
Physicist and philosopher of science Etienne Klein explains the work Fée Électricité YouTube / Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris