This post is updated periodically to include current and upcoming Paris exhibitons and events. 

If you're planning to visit Paris in 2019 or 2020, you will surely be interested in finding out about the essential Paris exhibitions to check out this year.

Here we have put together a comprehensive list of exhibitions we think people should include in their Paris itinerary, depending on the date of their visit and their specific interests. If you are doing a tour with us, be sure to let us know if you would like us to include a particular Paris exhibition in your itinerary

 

Atelier des Lumières

The Atelier des Lumières has become one of Paris's top attractions for art lovers. This digital art exhibition projects enlarged versions of some of the world's most famous artists onto the walls of this exhibition space, turning them into moving images with a musical accompaniment. Through 2019, Van Gogh is the star of the show. Starting on February 28, 2020, Monet, Renoir and Chagall will take over, in an incredible exhibition called Journeys around the Mediterranean.

 

Atelier des lumieres - Paris exhibitions 2019 and 2020

Atelier des lumieres, Paris (Caroline Léna Becker)

 

  • Monet, Renoir...Chagall: Journeys Around The Mediterrean

February 28 - December 31, 2020

 

This exhibition spans the period between Impressionism and modernism. Following the Van Gogh exhibition in 2019, this new digital exhibition will highlight the link between artistic creativity and the Mediterranean shores, which were the principal centres of the modernist movement. The exhibition will immerse visitors in the masterpieces of 20 artists, including Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Matisse, Signac, Derain, Vlaminck, Dufy, and Chagall, among others.

 

These artists saw Van Gogh as a genius of painting, who, after his departure from Paris, used pure colour as his principal means of expression. In the 1880s, the Mediterranean attracted many artists. They abandoned Paris and the north of France, flocking to the southern shores, between Collioure and Saint-Tropez. It was then that they developed a new approach to the representation of light and colour. All these artists had links with the Mediterranean, either through their origins, or via their stays in the Midi.

 

This exhibition will show how their artistic personalities were brought to the fore by these seascapes and how pictorial modernism was invented.

 

 

Ateliers des Lumieres Paris exhibition 2020

« Monet, Renoir...Chagall. Voyages en Méditerranée »  © Culturespaces / Nuit de Chine

 

Musée du Louvre

Louvre Museum things to visit in Paris exhibition

 The Louvre Museum - copyright Ben Bard

 

September 25, 2019 - January 20, 2020 

The year 2019 marks the centenary of the signing of the Franco-Polish convention of September 3, 1919, “relating to emigration and immigration,” which led to a massive influx of Polish workers to France, and more specifically, to the mining region in the country’s north. To commemorate this important event for the territory’s identity, the Musée du Louvre-Lens will hold a large retrospective of 19th-century Polish painting, organized jointly with the National Museum in Warsaw.

 

September 25, 2019 to June 29, 2020

 

For its fifth season, the Louvre’s Petite Galerie—a space dedicated to art and cultural education—will be holding an exhibition titled ‘The Advent of the Artist’. Opening on September 25, 2019, this year’s edition will coincide with a cycle of Louvre exhibitions devoted to the Renaissance geniuses Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo and Albrecht Altdorfer in 2019-2020.

 

October 30, 2019 - February 3, 2020

 

In 1916, the Musée du Louvre and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France received a legacy from Georges Marteau (1851–1916), in accordance with the late engineer’s wishes: a collection built up throughout his lifetime. 

It included playing cards, artworks from Japan, specimens of Indo-Persian art of the book, metals from the Middle East and Coptic textiles. In 1917, Major Ferdinand Seiler, Georges Marteau’s brother-in-law and sole legatee, also gifted Marteau’s full collection of textiles from the Far East and the Islamic world, as well as Japanese stencils, to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The present exhibition, more than a century after Marteau’s death, seeks to commemorate this singular and little-known collector, whose generosity has significantly enriched France’s national collections.

 

November 7, 2019 - February 10, 2020

 

The importance of the role of private collectors in the creation of public drawing collections in France is well known. This exhibition recognizes one of the most generous donors of all time to French museums, Aimé Charles Horace His de La Salle (1795–1878), known for his love of drawings, as well as sculptures and objets d’art.

 

In addition to other French museums, he sought to enrich the Louvre, with donations and bequests of 21 paintings and nearly 450 drawings from all different schools.

 

In order to provide an image that remains faithful to the collector’s taste, the collection’s interdisciplinary character will be highlighted through the participation of four departments from the Louvre: Prints and Drawings (67 drawings and one miniature), Paintings (four paintings), Sculptures, and Decorative Arts (seven Renaissance plates and sculptures). This major collection will be complemented by over forty significant works on loan from other museums favored by His de La Salle: Alençon, Dijon, Lyon, the École des Beaux-Arts.

 

October 24, 2019 - February 24, 2020

 

Reservations for a specific time slot will be essential for those wanting to visit the  “Leonardo da Vinci” exhibition (including those entitled to free admission).

 

The year 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France, of particular importance for the Louvre, which holds the world's largest collection of da Vinci’s paintings, as well as 22 drawings.

 

The museum is seizing the opportunity in this year of commemorations to gather as many of the artist’s paintings as possible around the five core works in its collections: The Virgin of the Rocks, La Belle Ferronnière, the Mona Lisa (which will remain in the gallery where it is normally displayed), the Saint John the Baptist, and the Saint Anne. The objective is to place them alongside a wide array of drawings as well as a small but significant series of paintings and sculptures from the master’s circle.

 

This unprecedented retrospective of da Vinci’s painting career will illustrate how he placed utmost importance on painting, and how his investigation of the world, which he referred to as “the science of painting,” was the instrument of his art, seeking nothing less than to bring life to his paintings. The exhibition will paint the portrait of a man and an artist of extraordinary freedom.

 

April 23, 2020 - August 3, 2020

 

 

Painter, draftsman, and printmaker active in Regensburg, Albrecht Altdorfer (about 1480–1538) was a major artist of the German Renaissance. Nevertheless, the artist remains little known compared to other masters of his generation.

 

This mainly monographic exhibition aims to demonstrate the rich diversity of Albrecht Altdorfer’s body of work. He was prolifically inventive both in form and choice of subject and a pioneer of the landscape and architectural genres. The exhibition will emphasize his status as a Renaissance artist – at once highly original and thoroughly aware of the work of his contemporaries.

 

May 6, 2020 - August 17, 2020

 

Following on from the "Springtime of the Renaissance" exhibition (September 26, 2013–January 6, 2014), the "Body and Soul" exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Castello Sforzesco Museum in Milan, seeks to bring to light the main themes and ideas developed in Italy during the second half of the Quattrocento.

 

In the first two decades of the 16th century, these elements would lead to a defining moment in the history of Renaissance sculpture, with the arrival on the art scene of one of the greatest creators of all time, Michelangelo. The exhibition will focus primarily on the art of sculpting, but will also explore a number of works from other fields (painting, printmaking, and drawing).

 

The exhibition discusses three major themes: “Fury and Grace” firstly reveals the interest for complex compositions and the intensification of bodily movements. “Affect and Persuasiveness” aims to highlight how emotional states were at the core of artistic practices, with the clear desire to have a powerful impact on viewers’ emotions. Finally, “From Dionysos to Apollo” brings to light the inexhaustible contemplation of classical antiquity expressed in sculpture, developing the search for new harmony that transcended the naturalism of gestures and extreme emotions.

 

 

 

Musée d’Orsay

 

Orsay museum Paris exhibition hall

Orsay Museum exhibition hall in Paris 

  • Degas at the Opera

September 24, 2019 - January 19, 2020

From his debut in the 1860s up to his final works after 1900, much of Degas’ masterpieces were inspired by the Opera in Paris. He explored theatrical spaces – the auditorium, the stage, the boxes, the foyers, and the dance studios. He also followed the subjects that frequented these spaces: the dancers, singers, musicians, members of the audience, and black-attired stewards. This closed world presented a microcosm of infinite possibilities allowing all manner of experimentations with points of view, lighting, motion and movement. 

For the first time, this exhibition considers the Opera as a whole, including Degas’ passionate relationship with the House, his musical tastes, as well as the various aspects of the Opera itself. Degas’ art offers a portrait of the 19th century Paris Opera.

  • Yan Pei-Ming, A Burial in Shanghai

From October 1, 2019 - January 12, 2020

When he arrived in France in 1980 at the age of 20, Yan Pei-Ming immediately headed to Ornans, Gustave Courbet’s territory. Thirty-nine years later, he is considered one of the most masterful painters of our time. He was inspired by A Burial at Ornans, a masterpiece of realism, to create A Burial in Shanghai, specially designed for the Musée d’Orsay to mark the 200th anniversary of Courbet’s birth. 

October 19, 2019 - January 19, 2020

 

Dying on Stage is examines the impossible representation of death on stage. Developing a parallel installation, in the form of a contemporary alchemy, the artist collects fragments from the past within the museum - a prime example of how the past lives on - to create new works. He also questions the two aspects of his project, the norms that govern works of art and museums as a whole: fame and anonymity, splendour and wastage, the individual and collective. Christodoulos Panayiotou’s explorations focus on identifying and revealing the stories hidden in the visual archives of history and time.

 

November 26, 2019 - March 1, 2020

 

A key writer of the late 19th century, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) was an art critic who is still little known or understood by the general public. However, his contribution to the artistic press and the aesthetic debate was as decisive as the impact of his novel Against Nature.

 

The exhibition aims to show that this early disciple of Zola secretly, and later openly, acted as the heir to Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil. And so the public is invited to step once more into a particular moment in European art and modern sensibility at the intersection of the Naturalist advance of the 1870s, the decadent movement of the 1880s-1890s and the “return” to the “Primitives” against a backdrop of Catholic renaissance. There have been few great writers so involved in this vast movement of the time.

 

March 10 - June 29, 2020

 

In addition to being a doctor - a profession forced on him by family obligations but which he himself did not enjoy - Léopold Chauveau took refuge in a strange, self-taught artistic universe, both singular and original in equal measures. A sculptor, illustrator and author of books for adults and children, he long remained forgotten in the history of art, before a gift by his grandson to the Musée d'Orsay in 2017 (18 sculptures and 100 drawings) brought his name back into the limelight.

 

An atypical figure, Chauveau taught himself sculpture around 1905 after several years of practising medicine. From 1907 onwards, monsters became a leitmotif in his creations, both in his sculptures and his drawings. These hybrid creatures were often endearing, clumsy, and almost amazed by their own existence. Almost as though escaped from his subconscious, Chauveau saw them as genuine companions, the people of an imaginary world in which he found refuge.

 

This exhibition provides an entirely new insight into a work that was without equal at its time. It is structured around two parts: the personality, life and work of Léopold Chauveau, and his children’s universe that will leave young visitors mesmerised.

 

24 March - 19 July 2020 

 

 

Jacques Joseph Tissot, born in Nantes and a student of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, is a major artist of the second half of the 19th century. He was a fascinating, ambiguous figure whose career spanned the English Channel.

 

This retrospective is the first dedicated to him in Paris since the exhibition at the Petit Palais in 1985. The exhibition presents both the great successes of an artist who often created iconic images, and his boldest experiments. It also examines his materials and painting techniques, the themes that were dear to him and their variations, as well as his desire to express himself in different media, such as prints, photography and cloisonné enamels, in addition to painting.

 

15 June - 13 September 2020 

 

 

Léon Spilliaert was a man of troubling solitude and infinite perspectives. Drawing on metaphysical questions and Flemish culture, he surprises and mystifies with his uncategorisable works, inventing a symbolism of inner darkness that has marked Belgian art. His wild-eyed faces flirt with expressionism; his sleek landscapes seem to tend towards minimalism.

 

The exhibition - the first in France for nearly 40 years - will concentrate on the years 1896 to 1919, the most intense in his creation, and will present Spilliaert’s most radical works.

 

  • Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)

15 June - 13 September 2020 

 

 

The English illustrator and engraver Aubrey Beardsley died aged twenty five. Yet his career was no less prolific. He received his first major commission at he age of twenty: the illustration of the Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory. His work quickly became known through publications. His creations for Oscar Wilde’s Salomé are among his most famous.

 

His vivid and elegant drawings, depicting a strange, erotic and sometimes perverse universe, reflect the vision of the world held by this original figure in late 19th century England.

 

The first monograph dedicated to Beardsley in France, the exhibition will reveal some one hundred drawings that clearly distinguish his influences, from Pre-Raphaelite painters to Japanism, and his stylistic evolutions.

 

Picasso Museum

  • Picasso: Magic Paintings

Ends 23 February 2020

 

This special exhibit focuses on Picasso's paintings completed between 1926-1930, and explores his experimentation in the context of Surrealism, psychology, and his fascination with magic.

 

Musée National Eugène-Delacroix

(We are awaiting information on upcoming exhibitions at the Eugene Delacroix museum and will update this section soon).

 

Musee Eugene Delacroix exhibition

Musée Eugène Delacroix 

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris - Museum of Modern Art in Paris

From 11 October 2019 to 01 March 2020

Upon re-opening after extensive renovation work, the Museum of Modern Art presents a retrospective of work by the painter Hans Hartung (1904-1989). The exhibition looks at his entire collection of work and his role as a trailblazer in the history of abstraction. Hartung was a major 20th century artist who liked to experiment. The exhibition is an opportunity to discover the vast array of supports the artist used, his wide range of techniques, the extensive technical innovations he developed and the diverse tools he experimented with. A large number of works are on display, including oils on canvas, drawings, photographs, sculptures, ceramics and archive documents.

11 October 2019 to 16 February 2020

 

 

It will be the first time that part of the Lafayette Anticipations Collection has been displayed in a museum. The exhibition, which features some forty major works, is structured around installations (sculptural, video, and performance) acquired by the fund since 2005 and is intended to provide an overview of some of the most recent developments in contemporary art. The exhibition also reflects the ability of artists to interrogate and decipher our fast-changing world. While the outside world often informs and stimulates the creations of artists, they in turn have an impact on our perception of it.

 

Centre Georges Pompidou - Contemporary Art Museum

centre pompidou modern art museum in paris

Pompidou - Beaubourg Modern Art Center in Le Marais, Paris

  • Marcel Duchamp Prize 2019 Exhibition

October 9, 2019 - January 6, 2020

 

For its 19th edition, the Marcel Duchamp Prize presents projects with varied plastic foundations and reflects the diversity of artistic practices that coexist in France today. This exhibition displays the entries from the shortlisted nominees, and the winner.

 

The nominees: Eric Baudelaire (winner), Katinka Bock, Marguerite Humeau, Ida Tursic and Wilfried Mille.

  • Francis Bacon: Books & Paintings

September 11, 2019 – January 20, 2020

The exhibition is dedicated to the late work of the famous British painter, Francis Bacon, up to 1992, the year of his disappearance. In the second half of his career, Bacon brought books into his work. George Bataille, Michel Leiris and Nietzsche fed a polarized worldview that swung between civilization and barbarity, beauty and ugliness, life and death. In one piece he illustrates some of the terrifying expressions of his favorite authors, such as the "rattling of bones" from a poem by T.S. Eliot. His work portrays a deconstruction and criticism of the "poetic" modern world, rejecting all forms of idealism. He used classical culture and myth to present the dark side of modernity. Bacon explores violence, madness and hybris, synonymous with excesses among the ancient Greeks, on powerful canvases such as his triptychs.

  • Boltanski Retrospective

November 13, 2019 - March 16, 2020

Following a labyrinthine itinerary, this great retrospective exhibition looks back on the life and work of one of France's leading contemporary artists, famous for having blurred the boundaries between his life and his work, and exploring the line between the absent and the present.

  • CALAIS. Witnessing the 'Jungle'

October 16, 2019 - February 24, 2020

 

The exhibition explores the situation of refugees and exiles settled in a camp on the outskirts of the city of Calais, nicknamed the "Jungle", before its dismantling in October 2016. It does so using three approaches: that of the artist Bruno Serralongue and his documentary project Calais (2006-2018), the clichés of the national press agency, Agence France Presse, broadcast by the media, and the testimonies of the former inhabitants of the "Jungle".

 

Conceived as an experiment and a comparative approach, it allows an interrogation of the different functions of the image, its roles and its status.

 

  • Cosmopolis #2 Rethinking the Human

23 October - 23 December 2019

 

'Cosmopolis' is a unique platform for exploring artistic practices rooted in research and the sharing of knowledge around the social, urban and political issues of our time. The theme of this second edition is the relationship between place and scale, and the affirmation of other modes of existence and cosmologies. It poses the question: how can small-scale social formations - networked and articulated in different ways - offer models and systems of alternative values?

 

  • Meeting Points

23 October 2019 - 27 January 2020

 

 

'Points de rencontres' (Meeting Points) is the result of the first season of the Center Pompidou's Accelerations Endowment Fund, dedicated to the meeting between artists, funders, and the general public.

 

The exhibition unveils works by seven artists-in-residence, who were among the seven founding members of the Fund, in the first half of 2019: Hubert Duprat at Teréga, Lionel Estève at Cdiscount, Alexandre Estrela at Orange, Agnès Geoffray at Neuflize OBC , Jonathan Monk at Axa, Camila Oliveira Fairclough at Tilder, Bruno Serralongue at Ermewa.

 

These are presented in dialogue with a collection of works belonging to the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art.

 

Grand Palais 

  • TOULOUSE-LAUTREC

October 9, 2019 – January 27, 2020

Toulouse-Lautrec from every angle… This exhibition is dedicated to the artist known for his painting depicting Parisian night’s world. An exhibition aims at returning to three rejections influencing the current vision of Toulouse-Lautrec and clearing them: a certain despise of the values of his class, a market of disregarded art as well as a world of chargeable and overused night and sex.

Grand Palais from Alexandre III bridge

Grand Palais Coupola from Alexander III Bridge

 

  • EL GRECO

From October 16 to February 10, 2020

This exhibition offers a retrospective of Cretan artist Domenico Theotokopoulos, also known as El Greco. It will focus on the founder of the Spanish School of the 16th century, who completed his apprenticeship in the Byzantine tradition before perfecting his art and training in Venice and Rome before blossoming in Spain.

The aim of this exhibition is to present “this rich face” and the multiple facets of the artist, often referred to as ‘the last Renaissance master and the first master of the Golden Age’. 

 

Musée Marmottan-Monet

If you admire Claude Monet's work, a trip to the Marmottan Monet Museum is a must. It will nicely complement a trip to the Orangerie Museum (please see above) which has giant canvases of Monet's water lilies. These are on a smaller scale at the Marmottan. Here are the temporary exhibitions this year at the Marmottan Museum:

12 September 2019 - 26 January 2020

 

 

A member of the De Stijl group, Piet Mondrian is best known for his early, pared-down abstract paintings and his squares of red, yellow and blue. In this unique exhibition at the Musée Marmottan Monet, the emphasis is on his figurative work.

 

Some sixty outstanding paintings that Mondrian himself chose in about 1920 for his biggest collector, Salomon B. Slijper, are being presented in this exclusive Parisian show which reveals a little-known facet of this artist’s career. Landscapes, portraits and flower paintings marked by Impressionism, Luminism, the Fauves and Symbolism face the occasional Cubist and Neoplasticist compositions, showing Mondrian to be one of the finest colourists of his day and one of the great 20th-century masters of figurative painting.

 

Marmottan Museum in Paris

Marmottan Impressionist Museum

Musée du Luxembourg

The temporary exhibitions at the Luxembourg Museum often receive positive reviews.

 

  • The Golden Age of English painting: from Reynolds to Turner

From September 11, 2019 to February 16, 2020 

This exhibition includes a selection of masterpieces from Tate Britain and highlights a key period in the history of painting in England, from the 1760s to around 1820. It will present an overview capturing all the originality and diversity of this time. It takes the visitor from the founding of the Royal Academy, with artists such as Reynolds and Gainsborough, to the turning point in the early 19th century, notably with Turner. The public will rediscover the great classics of British art here, which are rarely exhibited in France.

 

Musée de l’Orangerie

Orangerie Museum Paris Monet

The Waterlillies room in Orangerie Museum in Paris, near Tuileries Gardens

 

  • Felix Fénéon (1861-1944). The modern times, from Seurat to Matisse

From October 16, 2019 - January 27, 2020

This is the first exhibition to pay homage to Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), an important figure in the art world during the late 19th and early 20th century. The Musée de l’Orangerie, in association with the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is honouring this extraordinary man who remains largely unknown. The exhibition will demonstrate the different facets of this unusual character, with his Quaker-like appearance and deadpan humour, who combined an exemplary career as a civil servant with strong artistic and anarchist convictions. He was a columnist, an editor at the Revue Blanche, an art critic, a publisher, and a gallery owner. Fénéon was also an exceptional collector who amassed a large number of masterpieces including a unique set of African and Oceanian sculptures. An unconditional supporter of Neo-Impressionism, discoverer of Seurat, artistic director of the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, champion of Fauvism, Futurism and Matisse, Fénéon played a decisive role on the artistic scene in the early 20th century.

The exhibition will bring together an exceptional array of paintings and drawings by Seurat, Signac, Degas, Bonnard, Modigliani, Matisse, Derain, Severini, Balla, etc., pieces from Africa and Oceania, as well as documents and archives.

 

  •  Contemporary counterpoint: Tosani - Reflection and transfixion

October 16, 2019 – February 17, 2020

Patrick Tosani has spent forty years exploring the possibilities opened up by photography. In Paris, he first studied architecture while at the same time working on his photographic technique as of 1974, focusing on questions of space and scale. He broke onto the scene in the 1980s with a work combining the heritage of the avant-garde 70s and a proclamation of photography as a means of experimentation. Patrick Tosani has taught at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris since 2004.

With the spoon series in 1988, the artist creates a new perspective on the resources used by Monet for the Water Lilies at the Orangerie from the point of view of an analysis of a motif transformed into a microcosm and with an emphasis on scale rather than immersion. Tosani blazes a unique trail that questions reality, transforming it into a physical experience. By isolating the objects, everyday spoons, captured naturally, become a new object metamorphosed by the light and enlargement. “It is about extracting from reality the small amount of information necessary and sufficient to its sensory perception. The faithfulness and precision of the photographic recording require a certain selectiveness. Not everything can be shown at the risk of clouding the perception. I take a step back with regard to a general representation of the world in order to limit all types of references. I focus my gaze not on ignoring reality but, on the contrary, analysing it, setting landmarks based on its infinite density. This selection has become the reason behind my work. It precedes the photographic recording. It becomes a metaphor of this specific characteristic of photography that is composition, that of isolating things.” Patrick Tosani, 1997.

 

  • Giorgio de Chirico. Metaphysical painting

April 1 - July 13, 2020

Metaphysical painting retraces the career and the artistic and philosophic influences of the artist Giorgio de Chirico from Munich to Turin, then to Paris where he discovered the artistic avant-garde of his era, and lastly Ferrare. The connections between the painter and the Parisian cultural and literary circles will be highlighted as never before.

Born in Greece and trained in the fount of classical culture and late German Romanticism, de Chirico developed the foundations of a new artistic exploration alongside his younger brother Alberto Savinio. A student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich as of 1908, he discovered the thinking of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer as well as the works of Böcklin and Klinger. After travelling to Milan then Florence, it was in Paris, from fall 1911, that he established his unique visual vocabulary through contact with the modernist artistic revolutions. He was quickly noticed by numerous artistic celebrities of the time, among whom Guillaume Apollinaire, Maurice Raynal, André Salmon, André Breton, Paul Éluard and Jean Paulhan were the first to take an interest in and promote his work.

The exhibition thus comes into its own at the Musée de l’Orangerie alongside the figure of Paul Guillaume, the first art dealer to work with Giorgio de Chirico. On his return to Italy in 1915, he and his brother Savinio were sent to Ferrare for military reasons, where he continued his artistic research. This period (June 1915 - December 1918) provided an opportunity for painters Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi to get to know the two brothers, thus resulting in the creation of what was later to be known as the “metaphysical movement” which brings the exhibition to a close.

 

MUSÉE MONTMARTRE 

  • Belle-époque passionately, the Weisman-Michel collection

October 11, 2019 to January 19, 2020

The Montmartre Museum shows for the first time in its totality the important Collection of David E. Weisman and Jacqueline E. Michel . A unique and rare set that includes 130 pieces (drawings, paintings, watercolors, pastels, posters and lithographs) made by the artists, who by their art, have offered Montmartre its universal reputation.

By concentrating their choice on the period of the end of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th century (1880-1914), American collectors David E. Weisman and Jacqueline E. Michel draw with this corpus the portrait of an eclectic Montmartre where triumph the creativity and beauty of the snapshot.

Rodin Museum

  • BARBARA HEPWORTH

From November 4, 2019 to March 22, 2020

The Musée Rodin will be holding the first monographic exhibition on the work of British sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) in Paris, in association with Tate. Though little known in France, Barbara Hepworth — who frequented artists such as Henry Moore, Picasso and Kandinsky — revolutionised sculpture with her development of a new aesthetic sensibility. Her abstract works, imbued with poetic purity, aspire to an ideal, peaceful world. The Musée Rodin’s tribute exhibition to Hepworth will present these sculptures, with their combination of solid and void; visitors who see these compelling artworks will find them hard to forget.

Rodin Gardens in Paris by invalides

The Gardens of Rodin Museum are located near the Invalides esplanade

 

Louis Vuitton Foundation

This museum from the Louis Vuitton Foundation features modern and contemporary art in a unique building designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry.

2 October 2019 - 24 February 2020

 

This large-scale exhibition is dedicated to Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), a free woman, pioneer of modernity and a leading figure of the XX century design, who contributed to the definition of a new art de vivre.

 

To mark the 20th anniversary of the passing of Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), the Foundation pays tribute to her as an architect and visionary creator through an exhibition of her work exploring the links between art, architecture and design. Through this exhibition, the work of Charlotte Perriand invites us to rethink the role of art in our society. More than simply an object of pleasure, art is the spearhead of profound transformations in the society of tomorrow.

vuitton fondation paris exhibitions 2019

The Vuitton Fondation is a bit outside of the city of Paris - in Bois de Boulogne area (Western Part of the city, not far from Roland Garros tennis courts) 

Musée de l’Armée - Invalides (War Museum) 

  •  A Salute to Style

10 October 2019 - 26 January 2020

 

 

This new exhibition at the Musée de l'Armée invites visitors to discover some exceptional artefacts. Combining historical, anthropological and aesthetic approaches, the exhibition highlights the way martial splendour contributes to the radiance and legitimacy of political power, and how it rewards merit and satisfies the desire for assimilation or distinction within the group.

 

Around 200 masterpieces of armoury and gunsmithery, as well as goldsmithery, embroidery, ivory work and saddlery, mostly taken from the Musée de l'Armée's collections, will enable visitors to marvel at these items of jewellery, fashion accessories and haute couture pieces... all exclusively reserved for the warriors of yesteryear and today.

 

Musée des Invalides Paris

Coupola of the Invalides war museum, across the Seine river from Grand Palais

Institut du Monde Arab 

  • Al-Ula, marvel of Arabia: The oasis with 7000 years of history

From October 9, 2019 to January 19, 2020

Fabulous diving in an unknown region of northwestern Saudi Arabia, "Al-Ula, marvel of Arabia" reveals the fruit of more than twenty years of research, for the first time revealed to the general public. Invitation to a journey through the millennia, from antiquity to the present day, in the heart of a sumptuous oasis transported to the IMA for an exhibition using modern technologies, newly discovered objects and the magic of old photographs.

 

institut monde arabe Paris exhibition 2019 2020

There is a great rooftop view from the Institut du Monde Arabe - towards Notre Dame Cathedral

EVENTS

Here are some events going on throughout the year. You may like to check which ones will be on while you're in Paris. 

April 6-12, 2020

The European Arts and Crafts Week is a unique event in the world promoting recognition of the arts and crafts sector.

 

April 2-5, 2020

Art Paris will bring together 150 modern and contemporary art galleries from across 20 different countries in the magnificent Grand Palais.

The perfect place for discovery and rediscovery, the fair combines a region-by-region exploration of European art from the post-war years to the present day and a cosmopolitan perspective on the new horizons of international creation from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Alongside the main exhibition programme, the fair will present a critical and subjective overview of the work of women artists in France curated by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions. The 2019 edition will also explore Latin American art, a focus led by Valentina Locatelli, an independent exhibition curator.

 

May 16, 2020 (TBC)

The event ‘A Night at the Museum’ is organised by the Ministry of Culture and Communication and aims to make culture more accessible to all. Throughout the evening, as well as presenting their permanent collections, some Parisian museums organise other activities, shows, readings and concerts. On this one special night, you can visit or revisit the top museums in the French capital, such as the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, or Centre Pompidou, or any of the other museums that are participating.

September 2020 (Dates TBC)

The 8th annual Paris Design Week is scheduled to overlap with Maison&Objet Paris. French and international professionals and the general public will be able to discover the best showcases of design in Paris, while the leading talents in the discipline gather at the LE OFF exhibition.

Paris Design Week unites 300 participants that all represent first-rate design in Paris. At a time when new collections are popping up in stores and the new concepts for the autumn are being launched, the event brings together the talents and forces of retailers, galleries, showrooms, hotels and restaurants for eight days to share their experience in design and creation with the public.

September 2020 (Dates TBC)

Launched by the Ministry of Culture and Communication more than 30 years ago, the European Heritage Days invite you to discover or rediscover the monuments of Paris for free. There will be many events to enjoy and participate in.

In addition to famous places such as the Elysee Palace, Matignon, the Musée d’Orsay and the Arc de Triomphe, visitors can discover contemporary attractions such as the Paris Philharmonic concert hall, the Louis Vuitton Foundation and the City of Fashion and Design.

October 2020 (Dates TBC)

At this all-night event ('The White Night'), artists create installations and put on performances at famous monuments and cultural venues, giving people a chance to admire Paris’s heritage after sunset.

 

October 17-20, 2019

An annual showcase of French and international modern art, including paintings, photography and sculpture.

 

 

If you would like to include any of these exhibitions in your Paris itinerary, please be sure to let us know!

 

 

RELATED: 

Self guided tours of France including Paris

France Just For You

Experts in self-drive tours in France

Travelers Reviews

5.0
John
In May we travelled to France for our second trip with Emilie and France Just For You, and it was just as wonderful as our first adventure! Emilie's planning is so thorough and detailed that not a thing is left to chance. The B and B's were lovely and the hosts delightful; the routes were carefully planned to give us a complete taste of Southern …
Tonya & Bob
We did 2 weeks May to June to Normandy, Loire Valley and Paris and had a wonderful time. We gave Laura our list of must see and do items and our budget and she took care of the rest. From arranging our auto rental to providing suggestions to the French smart phones, everything was taken care of and good not have been easier. When our car got a flat …
Sandy & Dennis
Emilie and Guillaume planned a wonderful trip for us. The B&Bs we stayed in were outstanding. Every recommendation -from restaurants to walks to things to do and see -was wonderful. They were very responsive to all our questions and concerns. I recommend them VERY highly and without reservation.
Lola
My husband and I have just returned from an amazing 16 day trip in France organized thoughtfully and beautifully by Emilie of France Just for You. As the other reviewers have stated, all interactions with Emilie have been prompt, professional and thorough. Although we have organized European travel on our own in the past, concerned that we might be …
Kate
Thank you Emilie for such a wonderful honeymoon! Every detail was taken care of so that my husband and I could just relax and enjoy ourselves! It was absolutely the easiest trip we have ever planned and we will certainly be using France Just For You on our next trip to France!
Anthea
We have just returned from a road trip around France and with Emilie's help, we had one of the best trips we've ever had. We travel extensively and I normally do my own research and bookings because we don't like using formal , organised tours but we were looking for advice on self driving holidays in France. Emilie's attention to detail is …

What are you looking for?