The Atheist’s Bargain with God That Became a Cultural Institution

Nice’s annual Messe des Artistes once again blends sacred ritual, cabaret spirit, and artistic talent to celebrate the centennial edition of Willette’s Prayer

There is a certain irony in an avowed atheist bargaining with the Almighty, but Adolphe Willette was nothing if not theatrical. In 1914, deathly ill and desperate for reprieve, the flamboyant Montmartre painter (better known for designing the iconic black cat that presided over Le Chat Noir cabaret than for his piety) struck an unusual covenant: should he recover, he would establish an annual mass honouring artists both living and soon-to-depart. 

God, it seems, appreciated the wager. Willette recovered, though his gratitude arrived fashionably late: twelve years, in fact. When the first Messe des Artistes was finally celebrated at Saint-Germain L’Auxerrois in Paris on 17 February 1926, its founder lay freshly in his grave, having died mere days before. Divine timing or cosmic joke? A century on, Nice marks this curious centennial on precisely that date (Tuesday, 17 February 2026), breaking with the traditional Ash Wednesday observance to honour the exact anniversary of Willette’s posthumous premiere.

^{St Germain l’Auxerrois Voeu de Willette 1926; l’image publiée sur Geneawiki sera sous licence CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 Creative Common; lien}

That first mass one hundred years ago established a template that spread across France. By the mid-1990s, it had migrated to Nice, where it found fertile ground. All throughout the 20^th century and to this day, the city has harboured painters and writers, museums, and galleries, and its proximity to Italy lends it both an exuberance and Catholic roots that run deeper than elsewhere.

As every year, St. Pierre d’Arène undergoes once again its annual metamorphosis from Nice’s largest church to pop-up gallery. Paintings lean against columns, side chapels are colonised by contemporary sculptures, a video work flickers near the reliquary. The stained glass floods the nave with coloured light, but on this day it competes with spotlights trained on bronze figures and canvas. Somewhere between the holy water font and the sacristy, art conquers devotion, or perhaps joins forces with it. In contrast to preceding years, there is no motto in 2026 – the centennial takes centre stage, and the event is simply labelled “Nous, les Artistes”.

^{Photo and design: Jean-Paul Fouques} 

Father Yves-Marie Lequin, the Dominican priest who has orchestrated this major artistic event in the city’s calendar since 2011, is well suited for his role: the chaplain to artists all over the region is also an artist himself. He instinctively understood how to amplify Willette’s vision and legacy. Under his stewardship, the Niçois celebration has become arguably the most ambitious one in France. The ceremony is reverent enough to pass ecclesiastical muster, flamboyant enough to honour Willette’s cabaret roots, and contemporary enough to speak to people’s hearts one hundred years later.

The mass weaves traditional liturgy with live performance. Alongside the plastic artists whose works are on display throughout the church, music, dance, and puppet play punctuate the homily. Even a pointu, one of the traditional Niçois fisher boats, will make a grand entrance along with the priests, artists, and dignitaries, evoking Nice’s Mediterranean traditions. It is an odd hybrid, this marriage of church rituals and artistic mayhem, but it works precisely because neither side takes itself too seriously. 

^{Father Yves-Marie Lequin and the pointus de Nice, source: Facebook}

The crowd reflects this synthesis. Elderly parishioners sit beside wide-eyed children, artists rub shoulders with the Who’s Who of Niçois politics and society, and representatives of different faiths share the space with tourists drawn by the commotion… all in all, some 1,500 souls from all walks of life, showcasing Nice’s cultural and religious diversity, pack the space to the rafters each year. Once the celebratory mass is over, the “after party”, held right in the church, and surely with the Almighty’s blessing, is an opportunity for all to mix and mingle. 

The event features around 100 French and international artists, drawn by its reputation for irreverence balanced with genuine spiritual enquiry. 

Among those confirmed to participate is Michel Anthony, the Malaysian-born painter and sculptor. His bronzes and canvases occupy a curious space between East and West, sacred and secular, speaking of peace and universal humanity: hands clasped across continents, hearts rendered in polished bronze, trees of life that bear a thou©© bright leaves. This year he presents Clé Sol, a sculpture to serve as an altar piece, and “Sang Blu!”, one of his vibrant paintings.

^{Photos courtesy and © Michel Anthony}

“My religion is humanity,” he says, a philosophy that finds natural expression in a mass celebrating artistry without borders. For decades, Anthony has worked out of his atelier in Old Town Nice, and he returns to this mass with the regularity of the devout, each time bringing new work that bridges divides that others insist on maintaining.

Another regular, Isabelle Servol’s presence carries different weight. The actress, singer, and dancer specialises in Belle Époque cabaret, recreating the smoky intimacy of Le Chat Noir itself and channeling the atmosphere Willette knew: Aristide Bruant’s rough poetry, absinthe-soaked wit, the feeling that art mattered more than propriety. She becomes the living bridge between Montmartre then and Nice now, between louche cabarets and Catholic church.

^{Source: Isabelle Servol, Facebook}

Some of the other highly accomplished French and international artists include organist Stéphane Eliot, lyrical singer Brigitte Touraine, painter Jean-François Gaulthier, photographer Gabriel Martinez, puppeteer Loic Bettini, dance company Offjazz, and writer and filmmaker Daniel Lance, to name but a few. And as always, installation artist Patrick Moya recreates the event in his 3D metaverse, broadcasting it live around the world. 

At the heart of the ceremony lies the Vœu de Willette itself. The text, composed by an atheist on his sickbed, is peculiar, even unsettling. It asks divine protection for artists everywhere, but specifically for those who will die in the coming year. There is something darkly prophetic about this, a memento mori dressed in devotional language. Each year, the prayer is recited by an actor, its words a reminder that art and mortality remain inextricably bound, and imploring God’s mercy on those destined to leave us during this current year.

^{(click image for English translation)}

Willette’s choice of Ash Wednesday as the traditional date was no accident. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” the priest intones whilst marking foreheads with ash. The ironist saw the symmetry at once: a day dedicated to mortality becomes the occasion to celebrate creative life, however fleeting. His prayer captures this tension, acknowledging death whilst insisting on the primacy of art. For artists in the congregation, hearing these words becomes an annual reckoning, a moment to consider their own place in the long procession of makers who came before and will come after. The ones that have already preceded them in the last year, also receive their due homage after this prayer.

What makes this centennial matter is not the round number but the persistent relevance of Willette’s insight: that artists, however secular and regardless of background, come together over ritual and community. But for all its theatrical flair and jubilant exuberance, this remains a Catholic mass, complete with all liturgical requirements, just as its creator intended.  

^{Video via artworks! – l’art à l’œuvre… on YouTube}

Willette had an artistic and cultural vision, as a theatre man should have. Even one hundred years ago, he already felt the boundaries between sacred and secular blur. The Messe des Artistes therefore feels oddly prescient. It anticipated our current moment by a century: an experiment in finding common ground between believers and sceptics, between those who find transcendence in prayer and those who find it in making.

On 17 February, Willette’s paradox will achieve its fullest expression: he was an atheist who founded an annual mass, an anti-Semite who wrote a universal prayer, a cabaret artist who created a sacred tradition, a French nationalist who adored Shakespeare. All these contradictions resolve in a church in Nice packed with people from all over the world who have come to honour both mortality and the defiant creativity that refuses to acknowledge it.

His vow, made in desperation and fulfilled posthumously, has outlived him by a century. One suspects he would find that terrifically amusing.

“And we’ll take upon us the mystery of things as if we were God’s spies…” 

(King Lear, Act 5, scene 3.)

VISITOR INFORMATION

Messe des Artistes, Le Vœu de Willette

Tuesday, 17 February 2026, 6 pm | Free admission

Église St. Pierre d’Arène, Nice

VENUE DETAILS

Église St. Pierre d’Arène
52, rue de la Buffa
06000 Nice

Tel: +33 (0)4 93 88 20 31

PHOTO CREDITS

• Lead image © RIVIERA BUZZ
• All other images, photos and videos as credited