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Lee Ufan

Lee Ufan has followed his own path for over six decades. The successive fads of his contemporaries hold no interest for him. From his earliest works, certain principles were established and have remained unchanged ever since. In sculpture, these are the simplicity of volumes and the use of few materials, natural or man-made: eroded rocks and sheets of metal or glass. In painting, they are also the simplicity of forms placed and repeated on the canvas, and for a long time, the use of a limited palette. In a world saturated with images of all kinds that inspire mistrust, this restriction of means is to the visual arts what a retreat once was to ordinary life: a deliberate break and the creation of a space for reflection, silence, and contemplation. There is something of the hermit and the poet in him. In his writings, this inner necessity is immediately apparent, as is the breadth of his philosophical references.

These lines could have been written long ago, during the time of the From Point and From Line series, for they are the fundamental characteristics of his work. But, starting with the first Correspondences of 1991-1992, Lee Ufan’s painting changes. While the canvas remains white, the forms become larger and denser. The brushes lay down oblong strokes, sometimes edged with a light foam of paint. They unfold variations of gray from one edge to the other, from the very dark to the almost transparent. Sometimes a single form is placed at the center of the canvas. At other times, there are two, three, or more, distributed across the surface. In this case, their positions relative to one another evoke sensations of space and movement, as in his From Winds and With Winds series, but with different, more restrained pictorial solutions. This is also true of the Dialogue series, whether the painting is on the canvas or on the wall.

The most recent works, many of which are titled Response, are composed in much the same way: one or more separate forms on a white background. But they incorporate color. Just as gray shifted from shadow to pallor, blue or red, in all their intensity at the center of the form, are absorbed by shadow on one edge and by light on the opposite edge. The color then disappears, engulfed by a gradual darkening that almost reaches black and, symmetrically, devoured by an increasingly blinding whiteness. Whether the form is vertical or horizontal, the transition from light to shadow is inexorable. As the eye approaches, it perceives the undulating movements of the brushstrokes, which accentuate the sensation of life. Neither color nor form is stable. Nor is space, for frontality is disrupted by this chromatic phenomenon.

Lee Ufan finds here, once again and in a different way than before, how to inscribe and convey the passage of time. There is the time of the artist, that of pictorial creation and its completion, which leaves its light traces in the movements of color, which are those of the painter’s hand and wrist. There is the time of the one whose gaze follows these vibrant lines along these chromatic shifts and, at that moment, is extracted from the ordinary temporality of daily life, that of our overwhelming present. This moment is one of contemplation that makes life more intensely alive. “The life of a work of art,” the artist wrote in 2012, “is a transcendent sensation. This life woven by the work is deeply embedded in the order and complex principle of repetition that connects it with the universe, with waves and breaths. This is what is beyond me, other, and what belongs to universal life.” “This art is so vibrant that the exhibition reveals some truly surprising, very recent acrylic and watercolor paintings. The forms, with their shifting colors, seem to glide against one another and, at times, merge. Simultaneously, the chromatic palette incorporates previously absent nuances, mineral or marine. Lee Ufan’s works are once again heading in a new direction.”

Philippe Dagen

October 3 – December 20, 2025

MENNOUR

6 rue du Pont de Lodi

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Cocktail

Cocktail, an explosive name whose blast still resonates more than forty years after its launch. In 1981, Heike Mühlhaus, a recent graduate of the Wiesbaden School of Design and Ceramics, founded what would become one of the most iconic labels of the German counterculture. Together with Renate von Brevern, she opened a studio in this peaceful Hessian spa town, which quickly transformed into a veritable laboratory for experimentation.

Cocktail’s first catalog, titled “Innovative Keramik für Tisch und Raum” (Innovative Ceramics for Table and Space), reflects a desire to revitalize the discipline and push its boundaries. Disregarding conventions, Heike Mühlhaus departed from traditional methods, which she found too rigid and contrary to her ambition to “create large, simple forms” with open surfaces, conducive to the flourishing of painterly gesture and chromatic exploration.

Cocktail’s audacity was evident as early as 1984, when the duo attempted to participate in a design fair for the first time. Excluded from official channels, they decided to exhibit their creations in a bus parked in front of the building’s main entrance—a subtle yet powerful act of resistance, revealing their independent spirit and their ability to circumvent institutional structures.

This refusal to compromise found an even more radical expression during the famous “Cruise” they organized on the Rhine, during which pieces they deemed unsatisfactory were symbolically thrown into the water. This gesture, both performative and cathartic, reflected Heike Mühlhaus’s desire to liberate creation from all complacency. It also marked the birth of a true method: eliminating to clarify, rejecting to move forward.

Cocktail gradually abandoned tableware—cups, tumblers, vases, and plates—to focus on form pieces. Fueled by the electric energy of the 1980s and driven by the desire to project their work beyond the regional sphere, the two women moved their studio to Berlin in 1985. This move marked a new stage: the Label’s integration into a vibrant art scene where disciplines intersected.

Claiming an approach that is “open, evolving, and always uncertain in its outcome,” Heike Mühlhaus is revolutionizing the working of clay. By combining metal with ceramics, she reinforces its telluric character; each piece seems to emerge from the earth’s core, which, metaphorically, contributes to forging an underground aesthetic.

This relationship to the origins of beings and matter is also manifested in her treatment of form, which is alternately archetypal of Antiquity and the Middle Ages and universal, such as the sphere and the disc, whose geometry embodies unity, balance, and totality.

Through a subtle mise en abyme of the creative process, Heike Mühlhaus’s works with their jagged collars seem to blossom, defining themselves as much by what they retain as by what they liberate.

The Berlin-based ceramicist also draws on the motif: the Greek Cross, a recurring motif in Cocktail’s work, constitutes a strong visual marker, shared by the alternative scene of the late 1980s. Both immediately recognizable and culturally polysemous, it is part of the transgressive iconography developed by punk, metal, and techno music groups, while artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Barbara Kruger use it to structure space and create visual tensions in painting.

Similarly, the tribal motifs Cocktail draws from African and Asian cultures are graphically reinterpreted and detached from their ritual function. As components of distinctive ensembles, they mark both an attachment to traditions perceived as authentic and an aesthetic and identity claim.

The 1991 retrospective at the Magdeburg Museum celebrated the label’s 10th anniversary. Following Renate von Brevern’s departure that same year, Heike Mühlhaus continued to lead Cocktail alone. She then conceived new collections of objects and developed numerous collaborations in both interior architecture and design. By placing the working of clay at the heart of avant-garde movements, Cocktail illustrates ceramics’ capacity to transcend its utilitarian function and become a leading cultural and symbolic force, at the crossroads of contemporary practices. Each of Heike Mühlhaus’s works thus functions as a fragment of a total artwork, both intimately Berlin-based and universally resonant, whose impact on European design is still felt today.

November 13 – December 20, 2025

GALERIE ROMAIN MORANDI


18 rue Guénégaud 75006 Paris

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Maurits Cornelis Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher, or as he preferred to be called, M.C. Escher, is a fascinating artist who knew how to transform geometry and mathematics into art, through his tessellations, optical illusions and impossible worlds, but who was initially also a remarkable landscape painter.

The exhibition, curated by Jean-Hubert Martin and Federico Giudiceandrea, two of the leading experts on the artist, immerses us in the imaginative and astonishing world of this Dutch genius, born in 1898 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands.

Celebrated for his visionary creations, visual paradoxes, and infinite geometries, he has become an icon over time, not only for mathematicians and researchers, but also for the general public, captivated by the visual and conceptual power of his work. His creations represent a true convergence of the scientific world and artistic creation, profoundly influencing the worlds of design, graphic arts, film, advertising, fashion, and music even today.

From the 1950s onward, his popularity steadily increased. Thanks also to his connections with the scientific and academic world, various journals began to dedicate articles and reviews to him. In the United States, the hippie movement appropriated his works, modifying and reproducing them on posters and T-shirts, in a psychedelic style.

The exhibition immerses us in his work and its progression toward abstraction, impossible perspectives, and astonishing, sometimes disconcerting, representations of seemingly plausible worlds irreconcilable with reality, which M.C. Escher managed to bring together in a unique artistic dimension.

November 15, 2025 – March 1st, 2026

MONNAIE DE PARIS

11 quai de Conti 75006 Paris

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Immarcescible


Limoges enamels from the Renaissance and their collectors

Limoges enamels from the Renaissance have fascinated people for five centuries with their enduring brilliance and their ability to transcend time. The new exhibition at Galerie Kugel traces their history, as well as that of their passionate and visionary collectors.

In an 1866 poem addressed to the enamel painter Claudius Popelin, Théophile Gautier celebrates “the imperishable enamel”—this vitrified material whose brilliance defies the centuries. At the end of the 15th century, Limoges, already renowned for its medieval enamels, developed a new way of painting on copper. The works gathered in this exhibition cover a century of excellence, from 1520 to 1620, marked by the rise of this distinctly French art. Copper, coated with colored glass fired in a kiln, produces a smooth, glossy, and unalterable surface: neither light, nor air, nor time can alter its deep colors and the delicate golds enhanced by the brush. Thus, one holds in one’s hands an imperishable image, in the most concrete sense: unalterable, it will not fade.

Renaissance Limoges enamels have long been a specialty of the Kugel Gallery. In the 1990s, Hubert de Givenchy sold his famous Boulle cabinet with its Apollo chariot and the enamel collection it contained to Alexis and Nicolas Kugel. He had an overflowing passion for these pieces, particularly those in grisaille, bucking the trend of a then-dormant market, and had assembled a remarkable collection. Presented at the 1994 Biennale des Antiquaires, it was not dispersed: the Kugel brothers sold it all at once, in the opening hours, to Pierre Bergé. The news of this spectacular sale was enough to revitalize the market for Renaissance Limoges enamels.

The exhibition offers the general public a unique opportunity to discover over 70 pieces. From the creation of these objects to the present day, the richly illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition will trace periods of enthusiasm and neglect, demonstrating that in each generation, a few curious and discerning collectors are all it takes to revive this timeless beauty. Many of their names are still familiar: the various branches of the Rothschild family,

J. P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, William Randolph Hearst, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Bergé, and Yves Saint Laurent… And, of course, dealers like the Kugels, who have rediscovered the enduring brilliance of this art.


October 22 – December 20, 2025

Galerie Kugel


25 quai Anatole-France 75007 Paris

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ONE HUNDRED YEARS of Art Deco

1925-2025

Born in the 1910s in the wake of European reflections on ornamentation, Art Deco drew on the research of Art Nouveau. It fully developed in the 1920s and was distinguished by a structured, geometric, and elegant aesthetic that combined modernity and preciousness.

Its forms appealed to decorators, architects, and manufacturers of the time, but often remained reserved for the wealthy, due to the high cost of materials and the finesse of the techniques used at the time. Art Deco embodied a prolific period, marked by a thirst for novelty, speed, and freedom. It touches on all areas of creation: furniture, fashion, jewelry, graphic arts, architecture, transportation, etc. The exhibition thus revisits the different trends of Art Deco, between the assertive geometric abstraction of Sonia Delaunay and Robert Mallet-Stevens, the formal purity of Georges Bastard and Eugène Printz, or the taste for the decorative of Clément Mère and Albert-Armand Rateau.

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs has played a central role in the recognition of Art Deco from its very beginnings, hosting the salons of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs and building an exceptionally rich collection. The exhibition “1925-2025. One Hundred Years of Art Deco” draws on this remarkable collection, enriched with works on loan from major institutions and private collections, to present emblematic pieces: André Groult’s shagreen chiffonier, the refined creations of Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, and Pierre Chareau’s spectacular desk-library designed for the French Embassy, ​​reinstalled for this occasion. Three leading designers – Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, Eileen Gray and Jean-Michel Frank – are highlighted, each embodying a unique facet of Art Deco.

Since the late 1960s, the museum has also established itself as a pioneer in the rediscovery of the style, notably with the exhibition “The 25 Years,” which revived the interest of both the public and specialists. This revival continued in the following decades, spearheaded in the 1970s by major figures such as Yves Saint Laurent, an Art Deco enthusiast, and his associate, the decorator Jacques Grange, to whom the museum gave carte blanche within the exhibition.

Organized along a vast chronological and thematic path that unfolds in the nave and in the galleries on the second and third floors of the museum, the exhibition traces the origins, peak, development, and contemporary reinterpretations of Art Deco. It reveals the richness and relevance of a constantly evolving movement through more than a thousand works.

All areas of artistic creation and decoration are presented. The remarkable lacquers of Jean Dunand rub shoulders with the glassworks of François Décorchemont, the tableware industry, tableware, and jewelry, illustrated by strikingly modern pieces, notably a series of brooches by Raymond Templier and Jean Desprès. The fundamental role of drawing is highlighted through decorative, interior design, and furniture projects, notably Groult’s designs for Madame’s bedroom in the French Embassy pavilion, which interact with the chiffonier, one of its rare vestiges. The world of fashion and textile arts is represented by Marguerite Pangon’s cape, Madeleine Vionnet’s dress with little horses, a jacket made by Sonia Delaunay, a dress by Jeanne Lanvin, as well as textile designs and store window designs.

A symbol of refined travel and French savoir-faire, the Orient Express reached its golden age in the 1920s. Decorated by great artists such as René Prou ​​and René and Suzanne Lalique, it became a rolling manifesto of Art Deco aesthetics. One hundred years later, this legend is reborn. The exhibition exclusively unveils, in the Nave of the museum, life-size interior models of the future Orient Express, reimagined by artistic director Maxime d’Angeac, interacting with a 1926 Art Deco cabin from the museum’s collections. Drawing on the heritage of the style and the world of artistic crafts, his project fuses excellent craftsmanship, technological innovation, and contemporary design to invent the train of the 21st century. In 2025, as in 1925, Art Deco inspires a luxury focused on the future.

An exceptional collection of pieces from the Maison Cartier, some presented for the first time in dialogue with the museum’s collections, allows visitors to gauge the impact of this style on the field of jewelry. More than 80 objects—necklaces, tiaras, boxes, watches, kits, drawings, and archival documents—illustrate the formal inventiveness and symbolic richness of the Maison’s creations. Between rigorous geometry and sensual materials, motifs inspired by the Orient and technical innovation, these pieces embody the aesthetic of Art Deco luxury, while reflecting the evolving tastes of a cosmopolitan international clientele seeking distinction and modernity. A century after its emergence, Art Deco continues to inspire with its modernity, elegance, and freedom of form. By combining the perspectives of yesterday and today, the exhibition demonstrates how this movement remains vibrant, resonating with contemporary aesthetic questions and expertise. More than a tribute to the past, it invites us to rethink Art Deco as an ever-fertile source of creation and innovation.

October 22, 2025 – April 26, 2026

MAD Paris

107 rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris

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PURISME(S)

Willi Baumeister – Marcelle Cahn

Otto Gustav Carlsund – Franciska Clausen

Le Corbusier – Amédée Ozenfant

Le Corbusier, “Nature morte puriste, lanterne, guitare, pichet et livre”, 1920

Purism emerged as a reaction to Cubism, which Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant admired for its modernity, but which they felt had become abstruse and sometimes decorative. Rigorous and austere in theory, a true precursor of conceptual art, Purism unfolded through a formal repertoire, favoring the representation of standardized objects: glasses, bottles, pitchers, and compote dishes, with the aim of capturing their very essence: ultra-legible representation, respected proportions, shared contours, diligently drawn lines, and a questioning of the codes of perspective. According to Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, a new aesthetic must emerge with the simplification of objects and the quest for functionalism. Science then constituted the fundamental breeding ground for their aesthetic, with art having to rigorously reveal a form of higher truth. The movement is part of the avant-garde movements of the time, like the simultaneism of Delaunay, Bauhaus or constructivism, with the aim of creating a new language.
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Le Corbusier, “Nature-morte-puriste-verticale”, 1922

The exhibition’s first figure, Le Corbusier, began his artistic career with purist compositions: paintings, gouaches, and drawings that perfectly embody the core of his purist practice are featured in the exhibition. Even after his break with Ozenfant, Le Corbusier continued to create object compositions throughout his career. This short but crucial stage in his artistic development had a profound impact on him. Each decade, he returned to purism by incorporating his current formal concerns, notably by renewing his color palette. This section, composed of later works, is shown at the Galerie Pascal Cuisinier. He also used purist compositions to explore diverse mediums, such as tapestry, which he particularly favored.

It was Amédée Ozenfant who, upon their meeting in 1917, introduced Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (the future Le Corbusier) to Cubism, explained his views on Purism and taught him painting. Mentor, teacher and professor, Ozenfant produced purist works most in line with the principles he had forged. Pictorial research was carefully thought out in advance, prior to the execution of the gouaches and the final paintings. Ozenfant’s still lifes are characterized by an ultra-synthetic style of representing objects, which are reduced to the simplest geometric forms.

Amédée Ozenfant, Nature morte puriste – Etude pour “Accords” ou “Fugues” 1921

Beyond its two inventors, the exhibition examines Purism’s ability to attract artists of diverse backgrounds and reputations, sometimes beyond France’s borders. Although intellectual and conceptual, the movement was in tune with the real world, then marked by the phenomenal advance of progress. The production of standardized objects, functional architecture, urban transformations, and the renewal of transport permeated Purist works. Since then, the movement has attracted a significant number of French and international artists. Each of them has produced a personal Purism, which has often broken free from the precepts of its founders. Franciska Clausen, a Danish artist, enrolled in the Académie Moderne of Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant in 1924 and, during her stay in Paris, produced works inspired by Purism. She was one of the most original participants in the movement, adding a surrealist touch, painting sensual and dreamy compositions that included the human body, which she positioned next to floating objects.

Franciska Clausen, “Rue Delambre”, 1925

Marcelle Cahn was also an active participant in the movement, with a career parallel to that of Franciska Clausen. A student of Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant at the Académie Moderne in the mid-1920s, she created compositions in which she incorporated more dynamic elements than other artists of the movement. She was attentive to the body in motion, particularly to means of transport (the tram, boats). Her approach to purism, celebrating the geometry of objects or the human body, foreshadowed geometric abstraction, of which she would become one of the major figures of the post-war period.

Marcelle Cahn., “Nature morte puriste dite Lavabo”, 1925

Otto Gustav Carlsund, a Swedish artist, joined the Académie Moderne in 1924 (studio of Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant). He met Le Corbusier, then Mondrian. With Van Doesburg, he participated in the creation of the Art Concret group in 1930. A painter, creator of murals, and also an art critic, he played an important role in introducing the avant-garde movements to Scandinavia.

Finally, Willi Baumeister, one of the most prominent avant-garde artists of the 20th century, produced works in the 1920s that were very close to the concerns of Purism. The two founders of the movement paid tribute to him in their journal, L’Esprit Nouveau, quoting him and reproducing his works. Baumeister recognized a real affinity with the French avant-garde movements that emerged after the First World War. He admired Purism’s ability to combine a solid theoretical framework with dynamic production. Baumeister creates legible compositions in which simple geometric shapes are interconnected and form a whole. However, he draws inspiration from his machinist style for compositions in which the object is decomposed. In doing so, he approaches abstraction.

Willi Baumeister, “Figur”, 1922

Despite the fruitful relationships between these and many other creators, Purism has sometimes been considered a stifling straitjacket. Ozenfant and Le Corbusier broke up in 1925, the latter in search of sensuality and personal freedom that Purism did not allow him. Perhaps too demanding, the movement faded into the background in favor of abstraction and Surrealism, which flourished in the early 1930s. Through its quest for asceticism, its brief but intense duration, its utopian ideal, and its absolute desire to capture the essence of things, Purism is one of the most remarkable precursors of Conceptual art.

A catalog, with texts by Cécile Godefroy, Éric Mouchet, and Michel and Yves Zlotowski, published by Éditions Martin de Halleux, accompanies the exhibition. The section dedicated to Le Corbusier’s post-purist works is exhibited at the Galerie Pascal Cuisinier, at 13, rue de Seine.

Le Corbusier, “Deux Bouteilles et Compagnie”, 1951

October 18 – December 20 décembre, 2025


Galerie Zlotowski

20 rue de Seine 75006 Paris

Galerie Pascal Cuisinier

13 rue de Seine 75006 Paris

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Berthe Weill

Avant-Garde Gallery Owner

In 1901, Berthe Weill opened a gallery at 25 rue Victor-Massé, in the Pigalle district. She chose to engage with the artists of her time, contributing to their discovery and subsequent growth, despite limited resources. Among them were some of the greatest names in the avant-garde, as well as others less prominent today. With unfailing enthusiasm and perseverance, she was their voice and supported them for nearly forty years until the closure of her gallery in 1940, in the context of the war and the persecution of the Jews. As early as 1933, she had published her memories of three decades of activity under the title “Pan! Dans l’œil…”, a pioneer in this literary genre.

Yet, the trajectory of Berthe Weill, once almost erased, is not yet inscribed in the firmament of art dealers, which includes Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paul and Léonce Rosenberg, Ambroise Vollard and Paul Guillaume. The exhibition, organized by the Grey Art Museum in New York, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, aims to highlight a still little-known aspect of the history of modern art.

Berthe Weill has been committed to supporting artists since the beginning of the century, under the motto “Make Way for Young People,” which appears on her advertising card. From Picasso—whose work she helped sell before her gallery even opened—to Modigliani—whose only solo exhibition she organized during his lifetime in 1917—she contributed to the recognition of Fauvism by regularly presenting exhibitions by Gustave Moreau’s group of students who had gathered around Matisse.
A little later, she became involved with the Cubists and artists of the École de Paris in battles for art, for the emergence of its new forms, but also against conservatism and xenophobia. Despite the vicissitudes, her interest in young artists never wavered, and thus she fiercely defended very different figures, some of whom did not belong to any specific movement, and gave them a chance by organizing one or more exhibitions. She also promoted a number of women artists, regardless of gender or school, from Émilie Charmy, whom she exhibited regularly from 1905 to 1933 and whom she described as a “lifelong friend,” to Jacqueline Marval, Hermine David, and Suzanne Valadon, then highly prominent.

By 1951, when she passed away, she had presented more than 300 artists at her gallery’s four successive locations: 25 rue Victor-Massé; 50 rue Taitbout from 1917; 46 rue Laffitte from 1920 to 1934; and finally 27 rue Saint-Dominique. She organized hundreds of exhibitions until her gallery closed permanently in 1940.

The exhibition invites visitors to discover the dealer’s career and personality through her contribution to the advent of some of the moments that art history has retained. It also traces the life of a gallery in the first half of the 20th century in its continuity and its twists and turns. Around a hundred works, paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and jewelry, evoke the exhibitions that Berthe Weill organized and the historical context in which they took place. The works of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Diego Rivera, and Amedeo Modigliani will thus be displayed alongside those of Emilie Charmy, Pierre Girieud, and Otto Freundlich, forming the portrait of a woman and her actions.

October 8, 2025 – January 26, 2026

MUSEE de L’ORANGERIE

Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde (côté Seine) 75001 Paris

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Jacques-Louis David

David is a monument. “Father of the French School,” “regenerator of painting,” he created images that still haunt our collective imagination today: Marat assassinated, Bonaparte crossing the Alps, the Coronation of Napoleon… It is through the filter of his paintings that we imagine the great hours of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, and in his portraits that the society of that time is relived.

On the occasion of the bicentenary of his death in exile in Brussels in 1825, the Louvre, which houses the world’s largest collection of the artist’s paintings and drawings, offers a new perspective on a personality and work of exceptional richness and diversity. The exhibition highlights the inventiveness and expressive power of the painting of an artist who created images that still inhabit our collective imagination today.

The exhibition, which covers the long career of an artist who lived through six political regimes and actively participated in the Revolution, brings together around a hundred exceptional loans, including the imposing fragment of the Oath of the Tennis Court (on loan from the Louvre Museum to the Palace of Versailles) and the original version of the famous Marat Assassinated (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels), the height of his art.

October 15, 2025 – January 26, 2026

MUSEE du LOUVRE

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Mattia Bonetti

Poetic Design

We’ve been waiting for the Barbarians for four decades, like we’ve been waiting for Godot. Among them is Mattia Bonetti, who became One after sharing the stage with two. With all its paradoxes and oxymorons united and embraced, in complete exclusivity, Mattia Bonetti’s work has always been unclassifiable, and that’s what makes it so original.
The whimsy of a poet, blended with the rigour of a designer, cannot be tucked away in a dresser drawer with a filing cabinet.
A cabinetmaker, received as if in an armchair, illuminate

A cabinetmaker, received as if in an armchair, illuminated with powerful reflections in a mirror, Mattia Bonetti is no Narcissus. His masks are proof. A delicate brutalist, a lyrical barbarian, a velvety primitive, a telluric ‘Satyricon’, whether he’s working bronze, beating iron or forging it, sculpting wood or sanding it, the man brilliantly breaks down a table of contents reminiscent of myths and legendary ornaments. Between manifest pieces and gold leaf, between inspired gestures and adorable laconicism, here is a new play in sixteen previously unseen acts crafted by the elite of art’s artisans.

Pierre Leonforte

September 5 to November 22, 2025

EN ATTENDANT LES BARBARES

35 rue de Grenelle 75007 Paris

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John Singer Sargent

The Paris Years (1874-1884)

John Singer Sargent (Florence, 1856 – London, 1925) is, along with James McNeill Whistler, the most famous American artist of his generation and arguably one of the greatest painters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Adored in the United States (his portrait of Madame X is considered the Mona Lisa of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American art collection in New York), he is also celebrated in the United Kingdom, where he spent most of his career. In France, however, his name and work remain largely unknown, something the Musée d’Orsay exhibition hopes to change.

While the 2007 exhibition Painters of Light: Sargent & Sorolla (Paris, Musée du Petit Palais) introduced the artist to the French public, no solo exhibition has ever been devoted to him. Yet it was in France, and more specifically in Paris, that the young painter trained, developed his style and network of artists, achieved his first successes, and produced some of his greatest masterpieces, such as Dr. Pozzi at Home (1881, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles) and Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

Developed in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the exhibition “Sargent. The Parisian Years” aims to introduce this painter to a wide audience. The exhibition brings together more than 90 works by John Singer Sargent, some of which have never been presented in France. It traces the meteoric rise of the young artist, who arrived in Paris in 1874 at the age of 18 to study with Carolus-Duran. The exhibition covers his career up to the mid-1880s, when he moved to London following the scandal caused by his portrait of Madame Gautreau (Madame X) at the Salon.

During this decade, Sargent forged both his style and personality in the dizzying Parisian art world, marked by the proliferation of exhibitions, the development of Naturalism and Impressionism, and the rise of Paris as the world capital of art. The young American painter found support among other expatriates but also integrated brilliantly into French society, forging ties with a circle of enlightened artists, writers, and patrons. The numerous portraits Sargent left us of these figures paint a captivating portrait of a rapidly changing, highly cosmopolitan society, where the old European aristocracy rubbed shoulders with the young fortunes of the new world. Constantly seeking new inspiration, Sargent rarely depicted “Parisian life” but took advantage of his roots in the French capital to make numerous trips to Europe and North Africa. He brought back numerous paintings, landscapes, and genre scenes, which combined exoticism, mystery, and sensuality. But it was in the field of portraiture that Sargent established himself as the most talented artist of his time, surpassing his masters and equaling the great artists of the past. His formidable technical skill, the brilliance of his touch, the shimmering of his colors, and the provocative assurance of his compositions disturbed the public and seduced critics who saw in him the worthy heir to Velázquez. Commenting in 1883 on one of his most original paintings, Portrait of the Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, the American writer Henry James, a friend of Sargent, noted that the artist “offers the strangely disturbing spectacle of a talent who, at the threshold of his career, has already nothing more to learn.”

In 1884, the portrait of Virginie Gautreau, which Sargent would later describe as “the best thing he ever did,” nevertheless provoked hostile reactions at the Salon. These reactions focused in particular on the sitter’s morality and reflected the worldly and social stakes of “public” portraiture in France at the end of the 19th century. A special section of the exhibition is dedicated to this moment in Sargent’s career and to this painting, exceptionally loaned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and on view in Paris for the first time since… 1884!

Based on extensive research, “Sargent. The Parisian Years” also takes stock of the lasting ties that the artist maintained with his city of training, even after his move to London. His commitment to the inclusion of Olympia by Manet, an artist he admired, in the national collections in 1890, bears witness to this. It was also in France that Sargent received his first form of institutional recognition, when the State purchased his portrait of the dancer Carmencita for the Musée du Luxembourg in 1892.

September 23rd, 2025 to January 11th, 2026

MUSEE D’ORSAY

Esplanade Valéry Giscard d’Estaing 75007 Paris

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Soulages

Another Light

Works on paper

Rarely brought together in separate exhibitions, Pierre Soulages’s work on paper nevertheless constitutes an essential part of his artistic career. As early as 1946, he explored this avenue with walnut stain paintings featuring broad, bold strokes, which immediately marked his singularity within the abstract approaches of the time. Thanks to exceptional loans from the Soulages Museum, the exhibition brings together 130 works created between the 1940s and the early 2000s, including 25 previously unseen works. Discover a collection of paintings on paper, long preserved in the artist’s studio, which demonstrate the consistency and freedom with which Soulages approached this medium.

Favoring walnut stain in his early years, Pierre Soulages often returned to this material, prized by cabinetmakers for its qualities of transparency, opacity, and luminosity, in contrast to the white of the paper. He also used ink and gouache for works whose limited formats in no way compromise their formal power and diversity.
By highlighting this collection of paintings on paper, the exhibition invites you to rediscover Pierre Soulages in a practice that is both intimate and decisive, at the heart of his visual language.

September 17, 2025 to January 11, 2026

MUSEE du LUXEMBOURG

19 rue de Vaugirard 75006 Paris

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Pixi Gallery celebrates its 40th anniversary

“For 40 years, I’ve been opening the same lock at 95 rue de Seine, and I admit that as soon as I walk through the door, I’m overwhelmed by immense joy. I love this place dearly. I’ve shaped it over time in my own way, influenced by all the people I’ve met, the people I love and admire. I do my job like a director. Every month, I showcase different artists of all nationalities and styles, paying little attention to successive trends or the “expectations” of the art market. A beautiful story mixing enthusiasm and despair, which makes me ask myself the same question every day: ‘Do I stop or do I continue?’ But the artists and people who trust me always win; they give me the strength to continue. I’m happy to celebrate this anniversary with you, and I invite you to discover the artists who have been with me all these years.”

Marie Victoire Poliakoff ­

 October 10, 2025 – March 7, 2026

GALERIE PIXI

95 rue de Seine 75006 Paris

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