A selection of exibitions in Paris not to miss this Fall-Winter 2025, with Pierre Soulages, Amazônia, Gerhard Richter, Luc Delahaye, Francis Kurkdjian..
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From the intimacy of an artist’s studio to dreams of space exploration, Paris is transforming this autumn 2025 into a vast open-air museum. Major institutions are competing in boldness to celebrate the masters of yesterday and the creators of today, from painting, photography, perfume, cinema and digital arts… everything blends and resonates together.
At the Palais de Tokyo, Francis Kurkdjian turns perfume into an invisible sculpture to be sensed and experienced (in cover picture). A little further on, the Louvre Museum revisits the revolutionary legacy of Jacques-Louis David, while the Fondation Louis Vuitton devotes a fascinating panorama to Gerhard Richter. From the masterpieces of Georges de La Tour to the contemporary visions of Luc Delahaye, from the forests of the Amazon to the lunar landscapes of Tom Hanks, each exhibition offers a journey through emotion, dream, and reality. In fact, a vibrant season in which art, in all its forms, illuminates the city with a new light. By ST & AL
Pierre Soulages – Peintures sur papier (Musée du Luxembourg)
The Musée du Luxembourg honors the master of black through a fresh angle: his works on paper. Often overshadowed by his large canvases, these pieces reveal the origins of his abstract language. From his early charcoals to his walnut-stain experiments, Soulages explores light through matter, playing with transparency, opacity, and depth.
Nearly 130 works, including several previously unseen, are gathered with the help of the Musée Soulages in Rodez. The exhibition shows how, from childhood, the artist was fascinated by the contrast between black and white, a symbol of his quest for inner light. A sensitive journey into the laboratory of a visionary painter.
📅 September 16, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Gerhard Richter (Fondation Louis Vuitton)
The Fondation Louis Vuitton hosts a monumental retrospective dedicated to Gerhard Richter, a towering figure of contemporary art. At 93 years old, the German painter, known for oscillating between figuration and abstraction, sees 270 artworks gathered in Paris for the first time.
The exhibition spans over sixty years of creation, from photo-based paintings to his latest color abstractions. Paintings, watercolors, sculptures, and drawings reveal an artist who has constantly pushed the limits of painting. In Richter’s work, each piece probes memory, history, and perception. This exceptional exhibition offers a journey through matter and light, balancing precision and emotion.
📅 October 17, 2025 – March 2, 2026
Georges de La Tour – Entre ombre et lumière (Musée Jacquemart-André)
A master of chiaroscuro, Georges de La Tour is the subject of a major retrospective at the Musée Jacquemart-André. Born in 1593, this discreet artist left a lasting mark on French painting with his candlelit nocturnal scenes. The exhibition brings together around thirty rare works from museums around the world, immersing visitors in the silent and meditative atmosphere of his universe.
From saints to blind musicians, each painting reveals a striking command of light and a deep humanity. We rediscover a mystical artist, fascinated by the spirituality of everyday life. The first major exhibition devoted to La Tour since 1997, this journey literally illuminates the shadows that still surround his life and work.
📅 September 11, 2025 – January 25, 2026
Francis Kurkdjian – Parfum, Sculpture de l’Invisible (Jeu de Paume Museum)
Before some renovation soon, the Palais de Tokyo celebrates 30 years of Francis Kurkdjian‘s creative career with the immersive exhibition, named “Parfum, Sculpture de l’Invisible”. Conceived with Jérôme Neutres, this free experience invites visitors to explore perfume as a true work of art. With notebooks in hand, visitors may collect perfumer‘s personal touches and discover new creations, like “L’Or Bleu” (for Blue Gold) scented drinking water, the ambivalent “Odeur de l’Argent” (as Scent of Silver), and a Bach suite translated into scents.
The highlight remains in a multisensory installation dedicated to the legendary Baccarat Rouge 540 collaboration, created by Cyril Teste and Anne-Sophie Pic. In his recreated office, the perfumer himself sometimes appears, reminding us that fragrance is much more than an accessory, but an invisible sculpture, to be smelled, experienced, and of course collected.
📅 October 29 – November 23, 2025
Luc Delahaye – Le Bruit Du Monde (Jeu de Paume Museum)
The Jeu de Paume museum honors Luc Delahaye, an internationally renowned French photojournalist. For over twenty-five years, he has captured the world’s turmoil, notably through wars, uprisings, disasters, with a gaze both restrained and powerful. As a former member of Magnum Photos, he merges documentary rigor with artistic composition.
This exhibition presents around forty large-scale artworks, several never shown before, and a video installation on Syria. Some images, harsh but necessary, remind us of the violence of current events. By confronting aesthetics and reality, Delahaye questions the viewer’s role in front of human suffering and the responsibility of images in collective memory.
📅 October 10, 2025 – January 4, 2026
Amazônia (Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac)
The Musée du Quai Branly invites visitors on a deep immersion into Amazonian cultures. Curated by anthropologist Leandro Varison and artist Denilson Baniwa, the show gathers over 380 works, objects, videos, and contemporary creations from the Amazon region.
This installation tells the world as seen by its peoples, far from clichés of a virgin forest. The exhibition reveals the spiritual, artistic, and ecological richness of a living territory where myths, nature, and traditions intertwine. Body paintings, ornaments, creation stories, and modern artworks testify to a fascinating cultural diversity. An invitation to listen to the voices of the forest and rethink our bond with nature.
📅 September 30, 2025 – January 18, 2026
John Singer Sargent – Éblouir Paris (Musée d’Orsay)
The Musée d’Orsay restores John Singer Sargent, the great American portraitist, to his rightful place. Born in 1856 and trained in Paris, he quickly emerged as a bold painter, admired as much as he was controversial. The exhibition traces his Parisian years, a decisive period where he refined a style both classical and modern. It features 90 works—portraits, landscapes, and drawings, several of which have never left American collections.
His famous Portrait of Madame X, the 1884 Salon scandal, perfectly illustrates his taste for elegance and provocation. Through his virtuoso brushwork, Sargent captures the light and spirit of a complete society in transition.
📅 September 23, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Les Gens de Paris (Musée Carnavalet)
Dive into interwar Paris with this captivating exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet. Through archives, portraits, and life stories, it depicts the diversity of Parisians in the 1920s–1930s, within workers, artists, migrants, independent women, and iconic figures like Joséphine Baker and Kiki de Montparnasse.
Census records serve as a thread to explore the social and urban transformation of a vibrant city. Infographics, testimonies, and period objects shed light on issues that remain relevant today, housing, work, freedom, inclusion. A living mirror of a city in motion.
📅 October 8, 2025 – February 8, 2026
Berthe Weill – Galeriste d’avant-garde (Musée de l’Orangerie)
Long forgotten, Berthe Weill finally steps back into the spotlight. A pioneer of modern art, she opened her Pigalle gallery in 1901, introducing the public to now-legendary artists: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, Dufy, and Suzanne Valadon. The Musée de l’Orangerie retraces her visionary career through a hundred works and documents.
With her outspoken character and keen artistic eye, she dared to support young talents ignored by the art market of her time. She also championed many women artists, paving the way for recognition still rare today. A tribute to her bold vision, passion, and perseverance, restoring her rightful place in art history.
📅 October 8, 2025 – January 26, 2026
L’Empire du Sommeil (Musée Marmottan-Monet)
What if we dreamed awake? The Musée Marmottan-Monet dedicates a major exhibition to sleep, an endless source of artistic inspiration. Curated by neurologist and historian Laura Bossi, no less than 130 artworks, such as paintings, sculptures, objects, and scientific documents, explore the boundary between wakefulness and dreams, from the 18th century to World War I.
From peaceful sleepers to visionary dreamscapes, the exhibition examines our relationship with rest and more precisely the unconscious. Far from a banal theme, it seems that sleep becomes a realm of mystery and beauty, where art meets science to better understand this third of our lives.
📅 October 9, 2025 – March 1, 2026
Jacques-Louis David retrospective (Musée du Louvre)
The Louvre Museum pays tribute to Jacques-Louis David, a giant of Neoclassical painting and a key witness to the French Revolution. To mark the bicentenary of his death, this vast retrospective gathers the largest collection of his artworks, through portraits, historical scenes, and monumental drawings. A master of gesture and composition, as you can see David shaped the collective imagination with iconic masterpieces, such as The Tennis Court Oath and The Coronation of Napoleon.
The exhibition also unveils the man behind the myth, as a committed artist, exile, and seeker of moral and political beauty. With over 100 loans from all across Europe, the show reveals the brilliance and modernity of a foundational painter.
📅 October 15, 2025 – January 26, 2026
