An exhibition in Oslo, Norway, is showcasing some of Le Corbusier‘s most important and oft-overlooked paintings.

The exhibition, Le Corbusier by the Sea, is themed around the architect’s sojourns in the French seaside town of Le Piquey where he would sketch natural objects like pinecones and shells. These sketches would be worked into paintings when he returned to his Paris studio.

Several of the paintings also depict bathers lounging in the sand, rendered in informal, curvilinear shapes that recall the organic geometries that Corbusier’s architecture tended toward later in his career. A statement from the museum posits that the architect was inspired by the shabby houses of local fishermen and links his visits to the area with his works’ turn toward supple stone and wood forms and away from the austere High Modernism of his earliest buildings.

The exhibition includes letters and various artifacts from Le Corbusier’s life between 1926–36 when the architect traveled every summer to the shore. Two films on the famous designer will also be screened as part of the show and are intended to show the lighter side of the man’s personality.

The show is being held in the Villa Stenersen, a venue managed by the Nasjonalmuseet, Norway’s National Museum. The Villa is itself an architectural attraction, being a carefully-preserved Functionalist home that was designed in 1937–1939 by Arne Korsmo, a leading Norwegian architect. The structure is in the process of being restored to its original colors and materials.

The show will be up until December 16, 2018. Click here for more information.