Cardboard silhouettes of the singer impeccably dressed in evening attire beckon us in to the exhibition, while his mellifluous voice fills the air with classics such as A Paris, Battling Joe or Les Grands Boulevards. The exhibition kicks off with mementoes of Montand's childhood as an Italian immigrant in the Cabucelle quarter of Marseille, photos of his first stage performances (in black and white of course), and a giant portrait of Montand with his first muse Edith Piaf. Their meeting was a decisive one for Montand, as she quickly introduced him to the repertoire of popular Parisian songs with which he first made his name.

"My first concert was on a Saturday evening at the Vallons des Tuves in 1938, at Saint Antoine" he scribbled in his shaky handwriting in the scrapbook where he collected the receipts of his first paycheques, the first articles about him published in Le Petit Provençal and Le Soleil ("a master of swing!"), carefully cut out and annotated. One such annotation reads: "But what does the future hold for me?". The date is 1949…

Featuring hundreds of photos and sound samples, the exhibition is organised in a rather labyrinthine manner and lacks a proper chronology but is divided into seven different themes, reflecting the different aspects of Montand's career in the music hall, cinema and the political arena.

Montand, the activist

It is impossible to talk about Montand without mentioning his political activism, which dates well back before his famous outburst following the 1956 uprising in Budapest and the arrival of Russian tanks in the Hungarian capital. "Yves Montand sings for everyone at the factory canteen" reads a banner that originally hung from a Billancourt factory in 1953. A little further on in the exhibition is a map showing all the towns in the Soviet Union that Montand performed in during his tour of Eastern Bloc countries in 1956-57. Numerous photos document the event: Montand with Simone Signoret in a sleigh in Kiev; Montand in a snowy Leningrad; a recital in Sofia; Montand in Moscow's Red Square.

Other photos testify to his more recent activism: Montand with the philosopher Michel Foucault in 1983 when the singer attempted to break into politics; Montand in Santiago in Chile; or in support of Solidarnosc with Lech Walesa in 1985.

Montand, the seducer

"What a handsome man", agree two women in their seventies who have come to the exhibition out of nostalgia for their own era. Indeed, it's hardly a secret that Montand was attracted to beautiful woman. The exhibition shows him siring the most stunning actresses of the 1950s and 1960s – such as the Mexican Maria Felix, the Italian Silvana Mangano, or the Hollywood stars Shirley Maclaine and Barbra Streisand. A poignant photo of a few years later shows an anxious Simone Signoret looking on as her husband falls under the charm of Marilyn Monroe at a dinner in New York...

Montand, the legend

One of the exhibition rooms is decked out as an old-fashioned cabaret hall, complete with glass circular tables on which stand old copies of Jours de France or Semaine du Monde. Montand was very much a star of the post-war cabaret circuit. It was not always glamorous: he even performed at one nightclub where the electricity generator was powered by staff pedalling in the cellar! On a television set Montand sings Le chef d'orchestre est amoureux, displaying his formidable acting abilities, despite a tendency to ham it up on occasion. Extracts from films demonstrate his extraordinary talents and his fruitful collaborations with a number of directors, including Costa-Gavras with whom he made six movies.

A corner done out as an artist's dressing room features congratulatory telegrams pinned to the wall, a stage shirt on a hanger, a hat, his walking stick, a few other personal items and some yellowing photos showing Montand with Kirk Douglas and Maurice Chevalier. Another corner pays discreet homage to Francis Lemarque, who died last April and who wrote some of Montand's best songs: Bal, petit bal, Ma douce vallée and of course A Paris.

Lastly, there are the tributes of celebrities from across the world, with a display of letters from the likes of Martin Luther King and J.F. Kennedy. Also included is a memoir by his friend the Spanish intellectual Jorge Semprun, who in his Je me souviens describes the fervour of the young Brazilians as the great singer performed at the Maracanazinho Stadium in 1982. Yves Montand was scheduled to perform at Bercy in Paris when he succumbed to a heart attack on 9 November, 1991.