
Posted in Events le 17 October 2015
What to see this Autumn in Paris
Here is a list of all the big exhibitions happening in Paris between September and January.
We will make sure to keep you up to date on other cultural events or main gallery exhibits.
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
September 23rd to January 11th
Grand Palais
This is the first retrospective devoted to the works of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun.
She lived during one of the most turbulent periods in French history (from the reign of Louis XV to that of Louis-Philippe). Born in Paris in 1755, she came from a relatively modest background, with her father being a talented portrait artist and her mother a hairdresser. By the time she was in her early teens, Louise Élisabeth was painting portraits professionally. In 1776, she married the most important art dealer of her generation, Jean Baptiste Pierre Le Brun. Her clientèle had mainly been the bourgeoisie but in 1777, she started working for the aristocracy, descendants of royal blood and finally Queen Marie-Antoinette. Vigée Le Brun would paint more than thirty portraits of the queen and her family, leading to her being commonly viewed as the official portraitist of Marie Antoinette. After the arrest of the royal family during the French Revolution, Vigée Le Brun fled France with her young daughter. She was finally able to return to France during the reign of Emperor Napoleon I in 1809.
Vigée Le Brun used self-portraits to assert her status, circulate her image and show people the mother she had become despite the constraints of a career. She became one of the most successful women artists (unusually so for her time), particularly noted for her portraits of women. Scholars estimate that she produced more than 600 paintings.
Grand Palais
3, avenue du Général Eisenhower 75008 Paris
Open everyday 10am to 8pm, except tuesdays
Late opening Wednesday to Saturday until 10pm
http://www.grandpalais.fr
Picasso.Mania
October 7th to February 29th 2016
Grand Palais
The exhibition at the Grand Palais takes a chronological and thematic approach to the critical and artistic highlights of Picasso’s career and the myth that gradually built up around his name.
From Cubist still lifes to the Musketeers, the exhibition is punctuated by works by Picasso from the collections of the Picasso Museum in Paris, the Musée National d’art Moderne, and the artist’s family. They are presented in a way reminiscent of the artist’s arrangements in his studios and the exhibitions that he personally supervised.
The great stylistic phases and emblematic works by Pablo Picasso are put alongside contemporary creations, grouped by artist (Hockney, Johns, Lichtenstein, Kippenberger..), or by theme, in a great variety of media and techniques (video, painting, sculpture, graphic arts, film, photography, installation).
Grand Palais
3, avenue du Général Eisenhower 75008 Paris
Open everyday 10am to 8pm, except tuesdays
Late opening Wednesday to Saturday until 10pm
http://www.grandpalais.fr
Lucien Clergue
November 14th to February 15th 2016
Grand Palais
Lucien Clergue was born in Arles on August 14 1934. Clergue’s first enthusiasm was for music, which remained a pivotal influence. He then turned to photography. At 19 he encountered Picasso, and introduced himself to him at the end of a corrida in Arles to show him his photographs. Seeing the talent in this young artist, Picasso introduced him to Jean Cocteau and Max Ernst and designed a cover and poster for his first book. They remained friends until Picasso’s death in 1973.
Realising before others the dominant position that photography was about to take, he is one of the first European photographers to believe that he could make a living from selling his prints in the future. His activity as a photographer was at the heart of his everyday surrounding, working only with broad daylight (powerful and intense), water, sand, the sea, life, death, the female body, the biological evolution of the earth or corrida and its deified bulls. The Camargue and the Alpilles, omnipresent in his art, were the backdrop of his solitary work. He is best know for his nude photographies
Grand Palais
3, avenue du Général Eisenhower 75008 Paris
Open everyday 10am to 8pm, except tuesdays
Late opening Wednesday to Saturday until 10pm
http://www.grandpalais.fr
Splendour and Misery. Pictures of Prostitution, 1850-1910
September 22nd to January 17th
Musée d'Orsay
Au Moulin Rouge' by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
The first major show on the subject of prostitution, this exhibition attempts to retrace the way French and foreign artists, fascinated by the people and places involved in prostitution, have constantly sought to find new pictorial resources for depicting the realities and fantasies it implied.
It was in Paris in particular, between the Second Empire and the Belle Epoque, that prostitution became a popular subject.
From Manet, to Degas, to Toulouse-Lautrec, to Munch, Van Dongen or Picasso, the exhibition focuses on showing the central place held by this shady world in the development of modern painting. The topic is also covered with regard to its social and cultural dimensions through painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and photography. A wealth of documentary material recalls the ambivalent status of prostitutes, from the splendour of the demi-mondaine to the misery of the pierreuse (street walker).
Musée d'Orsay
1, rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris
Open everyday except Mondays from 9.30am to 6pm
Late night on Thursdays until 9.45pm
Last tickets sold at 5pm (9pm Thursdays)
http://www.musee-orsay.fr/
RODIN: The Laboratory of creation
November 13th 2014 to December 6th 2015
Musée Rodin
Please note that the Musée Rodin is currently undergoing some renovations. The masterpieces are on display in the exhibition area. Camille Claudel's work are not currently shown.
The work of the French painter Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) constitutes the final expression of the rococo style. He was famous for the fluid grace and sensuous charm of his paintings and for the virtuosity of his technique. This exhibition focuses on the mid-18th century, a time when the spirit of Enlightenment is deeply influenced by English sensualism. As the Enlightenment accorded a new place to feelings and subjectivity, and the increasingly popular fledgling romantic genre put love at the heart of its stories, Fragonard used his pencils and canvases to develop a thousand variations on the sentiment, in line with the context of his era. THe exhibition explores this theme of love and romance; from the last flames of gallant love and the triumph of libertinism, to the blossoming of a more sincere, sensitive and already "romantic" version of love.
Musée du Luxembourg
Everyday from 10am to 7pm
Late night on Monday until 10pm
19 rue de Vaugirard 75006 Paris
Beauté Congo 1926-2015 Congo Kitoko
From July 11th, to January 10th
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain
A place of extraordinary cultural vitality, the creative spirit of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is honored in the exhibition. Taking as its point of departure the birth of modern painting in the Congo in the 1920s, this exhibition traces almost a century of the country’s artistic production. While specifically focusing on painting, it also includes music, sculpture, photography, and comics, providing the public with the unique opportunity to discover the diverse and vibrant art scene of the region.
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain
Closed Mondays
Open from 11am to 8pm
Late night Tuesday until 10pm
261 boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris
Warhol Unlimited
From October 2nd to February 7th
Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM)
The musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris is devoting an exhibition to Andy Warhol with over 200 works. It focuses on Andy Warhol’s curatorial experiments. Warhol rejected the idea that an artwork could be perceived independently from the whole of its surrounding. This exhibition includes the first European showing of Shadows (1978-79), a group of 102 silkscreened canvases of 17 different colours whose length totals more than 130 metres. Asked if these pictures were art, Warhol said no: "You see, the opening party had disco. I guess that makes them disco décor."
Note that the MAM also had other exhibition in it space. You can check the details here
Musée d'Art Moderne de la VIlle de Paris
Closed Mondays
Open from 10am to 6pm
Late night Thursday until 10pm
11 av. du Président Wilson 75116 Paris
“¡ Picasso ! ” , an unprecedented exhibition
From October 25th
Musée Picasso
At the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the national Picasso Museum will present a new exhibition of its collections. Making use of the variety of spaces offered within the Hôtel Salé, a nearly 2,500m2 space spanning 5 stories, the exhibit will present the artist’s productions in a re-envisioned organization. Almost 900 works and documents will display the richness and diversity of the museum’s collections: paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, ceramics, and illustrated books, in addition to works from the personal collection, photographs, and written archives. Centering on the notion of the creative process, the exhibit will attempt to shed a new light on the artist’s work and to understand the genius of Picasso by closely examining his influences, his models, his workshops, and his intimate and friendly social environment.
Musée Picasso
Open from Tuesday to Sunday : 9:30am to 6pm
Closed on Mondays (including Holidays)
5 rue de Thorigny 75003 Paris
Wilfredo Lam
From September 30th to February 15th
Centre Georges Pompidou
For the first time, the Centre Pompidou is devoting a retrospective to the work of Cuban Modernist Wifredo Lam, one of the few Latin American artists to win an international reputation in the 20th century. More than 300 works show off his style – paintings, drawings, engravings and ceramics – enriched with archives, documents and photographs that illustrate a committed approach in a century full of radical change. Lam's work occupies a singular and paradoxical position in 20th century art. It reflects the diverse movements of forms and ideas in the context of avant-gardes, exchanges and cultural movements – both within themselves and across national borders – that embodied the "broader modernism" described by Andreas Huyssen, but in a different way from the question of globalisation that emerged in the 1990s, and long before it. This exhibition looks back at not only the origins of his work, but also the various stages and situations in which a body of work, patiently constructed between Spain, Paris/Marseille and Cuba, was gradually acknowledged and absorbed into the corpus of canonic modern art.
Centre Georges Pompidou
Open every day, except Tuesdays from 11am to 10 pm
Karl Lagerfeld, a visual journey
From October 16th to March 20th
Pinacotéque
The exhibition reveals Lagerfeld’s many areas of interest including architecture, landscapes, Paris by night, portraits and self-portraits, fashion photography, and abstractions. This exhibit "explores the wide-ranging motifs, approaches and media that define Karl Lagerfeld's astute and intensely personal interpretation of photography."
Pinacotéque
Open every day from 10:30am to 6:30pm
Late openings Wednesdays and fridays until 8:30pm
28, place de la Madeleine 75008 Paris
Alber Elbaz - Lanvin
From September 9th to October 30th
La maison Europeenne de la Photographie
Mr Elbaz has curated “Alber Elbaz/Lanvin: Manifeste,” a photography exhibition which uses his work at Lanvin to explore the relationship between photography and fashion and celebrate the art and craftsmanship of clothes making. More than 350 images by photographers including Mark Leibowitz, James Bort and Alex Koo, as well as Elbaz’s original sketches and a dozen toiles — original linen maquettes of outfits — will be on display; the setup traces the story of Lanvin garments from conception to production to advertising. Elbaz describes the exhibit as “going from thinking, to the process of making, to the media,” adding, “what I love about my work are the people who make it and the process of making it.”
La maison Europeenne de la Photographie
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Open from 11am to 7:45pm
5/7 Rue de Fourcy - 75004 Paris
Folia Continua!
From September 26th to November 22nd
Le Cent-quatre Paris
To celbrate its 25th year anniversary, the Galleria Continua is investing the walls of the 104. The exhibition will tackle themes close the hearts of the artists and gallery: relationships
between people, their place in a globalized world, but also their dreams, sense of humour and beyond. The number of works presented, and the exceptionally monumental scale of certain
among them, makes this exhibition an event unto itself.
Artists included : Etel Adnan, Ai Weiwei, Kader Attia ,Daniel Buren, Cai Guo-Qiang, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Shilpa Gupta, Mona Hatoum, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov,Anish Kapoor,Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sophie Whettnall...
Le Centquatre Paris
Wed, Thurs, Sat and Sun from 2pm to 7pm
5, rue Curial 75019 Paris
Jacques Doucet-Yves Saint Laurent, living for art
From October 15th to February 14th
Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent
Jacques Doucet (1853-1929) and Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008), both well known fashion designers, were avid collectors of art. They both embodied the notion of taste for their era.
In this exhibition, the visitor is at once in Jacques Doucet’s final home on the Rue Saint-James in Neuilly in 1928 and in the apartment owned by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé on the Rue de Babylone some fifty years later. The artistic spirit of these places forms the subject of this exhibition along with the underlying aesthetic stance, which can be summed up in a single phrase: the search for the perfect space. With a set and decor inspired by the atmosphere of these places, the exhibition proposes a hybrid space that leads the visitor from one salon to the author across a series of five rooms that mirror each other
Fondation Pierre Bergé
Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm (last entry at 5.30 pm)
Late opening on thursday until 9pm (last entry at 8.30pm)
3 rue Léonce Reynaud, 75116 Paris
Marc Chagall: The Triumph of Music
From October 13th to January 31st
Philharmonie de Paris
Born in Russia, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) arrived in Paris in 1910 and began experimenting with Cubism, befriending painters Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger. Chagall’s style has been described as a hybrid of Cubism, Fauvism, and Symbolism, and his supernatural subjects are thought to have significantly influenced the Surrealists. The Philharmonie de Paris exhibition explores Marc Chagall's creations for the stage, the décors and architectural works he was commissioned to produce, all somehow tied to music. The show brings together some three hundred artworks (paintings, drawings, costumes, sculptures and ceramics), with multimedia installations featuring the ceiling of the Paris Opera Garnier, and photographs (for the most part previously unpublished), including those of Marc Chagall's studio taken by Izis in the 1960s.
Philharmonie de Paris
Closed Mondays
Tuesday – Thursday: 12am to 6pm
Friday: 12am to 10pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10am to 8pm
221, avenue Jean-Jaurès 75019 Paris





The exhibition Rodin: the Laboratory of Creation will let us into the secret of the sculptor’s studio, a veritable laboratory of creation.
A unique selection of some 150 plaster and terracotta works, many of which have never been shown before, will be taken from the storeroom for this special event. Visitors will be drawn into the heart of the creative process; by observing, they will gain insight into Rodin’s formal thinking. The series formed by the final works and by the studies and models preceding their creation will be supplemented with photographs taken in Rodin’s studios, or touched up by the artist to clarify an idea.
Musée Rodin
79, rue de Varenne 75007 Paris
Open every day except Mondays from 10am to 5:45pm
Late opening on Wednesdays 8:45pm
http://www.musee-rodin.fr/
Florence Portraits at the courts of the Medicis
September 11th to January 25th
Musée Jacquemart-André
The Jacquemart-André Museum has devoted an unrivalled exhibition to the great Florentine portrait painters of the 16th century, based on around forty works. This exhibition offers a panorama of Florentine portraiture with all its main themes and stylistic transformations.
In the 16th century, the art of portraiture became increasingly common among the Florentine elite, who had found in it a means of capturing their facial characteristics and social status for posterity.
Alongside the presentation of masterpieces by Pontormo, there will be a chance to appreciate the refined and graceful features, typical of the portraits of Bronzino or Salviati.
Musée Jacquemart-André
158, boulevard Haussmann 75008 Paris
Open every day 10am to 6pm
Late opening Monday until 8:30pm
http://www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com

Enchanted Times: Private collection of Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler
September 10th to January 7th
Musée Marmottan Monet
The exhibition Enchanted Times features the historical art collection of Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler, a Swiss couple who between 1906 and 1936 amassed an impressive number of Post-Impressionist masterpieces. Having been introduced into leading artistic circles in Paris by the Swiss painter Félix Vallotton in the early years of the twentieth century, the couple soon became friends with Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard and Henri Manguin, and later with Henri Matisse. Through close association and dialogue with these influential figures, Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler gained a profound understanding of the artists’ creative ambitions at an early stage of their development, and in this way became passionate and very knowledgeable collectors of their work. An unerring instinct for artistic quality also led them to acquire key works by the great pioneers of modernism, including paintings by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Auguste Renoir and Édouard Manet.
Musée Marmottan Monet
2 rue Louis Boilly
75016 Paris
Open everyday except Monday 10 am to 6 pm
Late opening Thursdays until 8 pm
http://www.marmottan.fr/
TATTOOISTS, TATTOOED
May 6th 2014 to October 18th 2015
Musée du Quai Branly
If you like tattoos, then this exposition is made for you! It is hosted in Paris’ museum of indigenous art.
You will learn about the tattoo's history and anthropological roots, its different styles and evolution around the world. For example, the practice was forbidden by Christian missionaries and by Mao in China. In some societies, tattooing was confined to certain casts, organizations or marginals. In Samoa, in the 19th century tattooing was standard and obligatory, a rite of passage for young men turning into adulthood. In the United States, Zulueta and Ed Hardy were the ones who brought and popularized tribal and ethnic motifs in the 1980s. The expositions is divided in five sections: from global to marginal (tattooing worldwide from Antiquity to the present day), an art in movement (the roots of tattooing in Europe, Japan, and North America), new skin: the renewal of tattooing, new territories of the world, new inking styles. It includes 300 photos, illustrations, designs on canvas, and other visuals from around the world.
Thirty two works have also been specifically made for this exhibition. Thirteen of the world's most famous tattoo artists participated in the exhibit. Silicone torsos, arms and legs were sent around the world to these tattoo artists so they could perform their art. The material was specifically chosen so that their technique could be carried out under realistic conditions, imitating the elasticity of the skin.
Musée du Quai Branly
37, quai Branly 75007 Paris
Tuesday, wednesday and sunday 11am to 7pm
Thursday, friday, saturday 11am - 9pm
Closed on mondays
http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/
Korea Now! Craft, Design, Fashion, and Graphic Design in Korea
September 19th to January 3rd 2016
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
As part of the France-Korea Year the musee des Arts decoratifs will be showing the Korea now! Design, Craft, Fashion and Graphic Design in Korea exhibition.
This exhibition brings together more than 700 works of art by 150 artists, artisans, designers, fashion designers and graphic designers. Discover the eclectic mix of styles, tastes and creations and the contemporary brilliance of this astounding artistic heritage still little known in Europe.
Seoul has become a centre of creative effervescence whose trends are followed closely on the international design and fashion scenes.
Les Arts Décoratifs – Mode et textile
107 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris
Open everyday except Mondays 11am to 6pm
Late opening Thursdays until 9pm
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/
La Mode retrouvée: Les robes trésors de la Comtesse Greffulhe
November 7th to March 20th
Palais Galliera, Musée de la mode de la Ville de Paris
For the first time ever, the Palais Galliera is displaying the fabulous wardrobe of Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952). On display will be some fifty models bearing the labels of grands couturiers such as Worth, Fortuny, Babani, and Lanvin.
Born at the end of the Second Empire, she lived through the Belle Époque, the Roaring Twenties, two world wars and was the acknowledged leader of Paris Society for half a century. She was the cousin of French dandy and poet Robert de Montesquieu and was immortalised for posterity by Marcel Proust as the Duchess of Guermantes in the famous novel « In Search of Lost Time ». Proust wrote: ‘There is no single part of her to be found in any other woman, or anywhere else for that matter. The entire mystery of her beauty is in the glow, above all in the enigma of her eyes. I have never seen a woman as beautiful as she.’
She was an early adept of ‘fundraising’. As founding president of the Société des Grandes Auditions Musicales, she raised funds, produced and promoted operas and shows, which included Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Twilight of the Gods, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and Isadora Duncan. In addition to this, she was a political animal ; a fierce supporter of Captain Dreyfus, Leon Blum, and the Popular Front’. She was also a passionate sponsor of science: she helped Marie Curie to finance the Institute of Radium, and Edouard Branly pursue his research into wireless telegraphy.
She was the epitome of elegance, with glorious outfits to match. Her public appearances were highly theatrical.
Palais Galliera
10 avenue Pierre Ier de Serbie 75116 Paris - Tél : 01 56 52 86 00
Every day except Mondays 10am to 6pm
Late opening on thursdays until 9pm
http://www.palaisgalliera.paris.fr
Accrochage 3: Pop & Music/Sound
June 3rd to January 4th
Fondation Louis Vuitton
"'Popist' centers on works that testify to the ongoing interest of artists for objects and images that since the advent of the consumer society are being vehicled by advertising, televisions, cinema and the internet. Work included: Basquiat, Gilbert & George, Gursky, Richard Prince, Warhol...
'Music & Sounds' proposes works in the form of environments, sculptures and videos. Music is integral to the work of the artist presented. Works included: Abramovic, Antar, John Cage, Cyprien Gaillard, Douglas Gordon..."
Fondation Louis Vuitton
From 12pm to 7pm, closed Tuesdays
Late opening on Friday until 11pm
8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116 Paris
www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr
Martin Scorsese
October 14th to February 14th, 2016.
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinemateque, will honor Martin Scorsese by giving him his first exhibition starting October. Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinema history. He has directed landmark films such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). The exhibition of photographies, storyboards, costumes, psoters, cult objects come from Martin Scorsese own private collection in New York, as well as the private collection of Robert De Niro and Paul Schrader.
Cinémathèque Française
Every day except Tuesdays from 1pm to 7pm
Saturday & Sundays 10am to 8pm
Late opening on thursday until 10pm
51 rue de Bercy 75012 Paris
www.cinemateque.fr
Fragonard in love: Suitor and libertine
September 16th to Januay 24th
Musée du Luxembourg











