Inside Art Paris 2026: a fair shaped by language, memory, and new voices

Art Paris 2026 will return to the Grand Palais from April 9th to 12th, featuring 165 galleries from over twenty countries. This edition is anchored by two major curated themes: 'Babel: Art and Language in France,' led by Loïc Le Gall, and 'Réparation,' an exploration of healing and memory curated by Alexia Fabre. The fair maintains a strong focus on discovery through its 'Promesses' sector for young galleries and a dedicated 'Solo Show' section featuring 24 monographic presentations.

Women of Abstract Expressionism Featured in Muscarelle Museum of Art Exhibition

The Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, VA, has opened “Abstract Expressionists: The Women,” an exhibition featuring nearly 50 paintings by 32 women artists who were pivotal to the Abstract Expressionist movement. Running from January 23 through April 26, 2026, the show draws from the Christian Levett Collection and the FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France, and is organized by the American Federation of Arts. It spans the movement’s development from the late 1930s to 1977, with works by artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Grace Hartigan, and is structured around four thematic sections covering New York, San Francisco, Paris, and the artists’ own voices.

Shortlist announced for Prix Marcel Duchamp, France’s biggest art prize

The shortlist for the Prix Marcel Duchamp, France's most prestigious art prize, has been announced. The five nominees are Joël Andrianomearisoa, David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin, Laura Henno, and Josèfa Ntjam. The winner receives €35,000 from a total prize fund of €90,000. Due to the closure of the Centre Pompidou for renovations, the accompanying exhibition will be held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris from 2 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. The winner will be announced on 22 October.

3 Art Exhibitions to Enjoy this Winter at the Petit Palais

The Petit Palais in Paris is hosting three winter exhibitions: a retrospective of 18th-century portraitist Jean-Baptiste Greuze (until January 25), a tribute to Finnish landscape painter Pekka Halonen (until February 22), and a solo show of contemporary artist Bilal Hamdad (until February 8). The Greuze exhibition is the first full retrospective dedicated to the artist, featuring around 100 works on loan from major collections. The Halonen show, the first major tribute to the Finnish painter in France, highlights his modernist snowy landscapes. Hamdad’s exhibition presents 20 large-scale paintings exploring urban solitude, drawing inspiration from Old Masters like Rubens and Manet.

France's Bonnat-Helleu museum reopens after 14-year renovation with new discoveries and 2,500 loans from the Louvre

The Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne, France, reopens on November 26 after a 14-year renovation and expansion. The project, led by French architecture firm BLP, doubled the display area to 3,000 square meters, restored the original building's glass roof and a mosaic by Giandomenico Facchina, and converted an adjacent school into a wing with a café, shop, research center, and study room. The museum now houses 7,000 works, including 2,500 long-term loans from the Louvre, and features discoveries such as autographs in El Greco paintings and pentimenti in Simon Vouet's work.

Exhibition Celebrating Abstract Painter Joan Mitchell Features Work on Loan from the Hofstra Museum

Joan Mitchell's painting "Metro" (1965) from the Hofstra University Museum of Art's permanent collection is on loan to David Zwirner gallery in New York for the exhibition "To define a feeling: Joan Mitchell, 1960-1965," running from November 6 to December 13, 2025. The exhibition focuses on a transformative period in Mitchell's career, showcasing paintings and works on paper from public and private collections, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, that trace her shift from structured abstractions to centralized, swirling forms inspired by travels along France's Côte d'Azur.

Seattle Art Museum exhibit explores France's food identity

The Seattle Art Museum has opened a new exhibition titled "Farm to Table: Food and Identity in the Age of Impressionism," featuring over 50 works by Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin. The show explores how late 19th-century France, emerging from the Franco-Prussian War and social upheaval, turned to food imagery in art as a symbol of national pride and resilience. Curator Theresa Papanikolas highlights scenes of farmers, food workers, and markets like Les Halles, which also depict class interactions. The exhibition includes a dining table installation with prompt cards to encourage conversation, and Seattle is the final stop on its national tour, running through Jan. 18, 2026.

George Rouy Bends Flesh and Bone in 'Shadowing'

British artist George Rouy has opened a solo exhibition titled 'SHADOWING' at Almine Rech's venue in Château de Boisgeloup, Gisors, France, running through November 23. The show is staged inside Pablo Picasso's former sculpture studio and features new paintings that explore the tension and flux of the human body, with figures emerging and dissolving in bruise-colored palettes and expressive brushwork. The exhibition is supported by Hannah Barry Gallery and Hauser & Wirth.

Memorial Art Gallery Announces Frontiers of Impressionism: Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum Opening Nov. 2

The Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) in Rochester, NY, will present "Frontiers of Impressionism: Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum" from November 2, 2025, through March 1, 2026. The exhibition features fifty-two masterworks from the Worcester Art Museum's collection, including Claude Monet's 1908 painting "Nymphéas (Water Lilies)"—the first water lily painting ever purchased by an art museum. More than thirty European and American artists are represented, such as Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and John Singer Sargent.

Brâncuși exhibition to open at H’ART Museum in Amsterdam this fall

An exhibition titled "Brâncuși - The Birth of Modern Sculpture" will open at the H’ART Museum in Amsterdam on September 20, 2025, running through January 18, 2026. Organized in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, it is the first solo show of Constantin Brâncuși's work in the Dutch capital and the second in the Netherlands since 1970. The exhibition features over 30 sculptures, original pedestals, photographs, and films by the artist, with loans made possible by the Centre Pompidou's renovation and the institutions' partnership. The collection originates from Brâncuși's studio, bequeathed to the French state in 1957.

The tale of a French psychiatric asylum that harboured Second World War resistance fighters—and where patients became artists

An exhibition catalogue from the American Folk Art Museum's 2024 show traces the story of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, a French psychiatric asylum that sheltered Spanish Republican refugees and resistance fighters during World War II. Under Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles, patients were encouraged to create art from found objects, producing works that later influenced Jean Dubuffet's concept of Art Brut. The asylum became a haven where hierarchies between doctors and patients were leveled, and patients bartered their creations for food during wartime austerity.

Cincinnati Exhibition Explores Why These Late 1800s French Artists Focused on Food

The Cincinnati Art Museum presents "Farm to Table: Food and Identity in the Age of Impressionism," a new exhibition running from June 13 to September 21, 2025. Curated by Peter Bell, the show features over 60 paintings and sculptures from late 1800s France, exploring how artists depicted food production and consumption in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. Works by artists such as Julien Dupré, Victor Gilbert, Rosa Bonheur, James Tissot, and Gustave Courbet are included, with the exhibition divided into sections on production and consumption, juxtaposing images of labor, market scenes, and dining practices.

A brush with Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence, France: a blockbuster retrospective comes to town

Paul Cezanne's hometown of Aix-en-Provence is staging a major retrospective at the Musée Granet, bringing together over 130 works including still lifes, portraits, and landscapes. The exhibition coincides with the reopening of two key sites after an eight-year restoration: the artist's atelier in Les Lauves and the Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, the family estate where Cezanne painted for 40 years. The Bastide, acquired by Cezanne's banker father in 1859, had fallen into disrepair and closed in 2017; it reopens on 28 June with guided tours and grounds open to visitors.

‘Degenerate’ or ‘woke,’ Paris museum exhibit shows what happens to art in the crosshairs of politics

The Picasso Museum in Paris has opened an exhibition titled "Degenerate Art: Modern Art on Trial Under the Nazis," the first such show in France, running until May 25. It features works by Van Gogh, Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky, Chagall, and others that were condemned by Hitler and the Third Reich as "degenerate" — targeted for destruction, sale, or concealment. The exhibition is organized thematically around Nazi persecution, including sections on race, museum purges, and the art trade, and highlights the fates of artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, who died by suicide, and Otto Freundlich, who was murdered in a concentration camp.

LEONORA CARRINGTON THE VITRUVIAN WOMAN IN LUXEMBOURG

The Musée du Luxembourg in Paris has opened the first major exhibition in France dedicated solely to the work of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. Titled 'The Vitruvian Woman,' the show presents 126 works and frames Carrington as a model of innovation and harmony, a deliberate counterpoint to Leonardo da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man.' It explores her artistic journey from her Celtic origins and discovery of Italian Renaissance art to her pivotal involvement with Surrealism in France and her final years in Mexico.

Proposed Restitution Law in France Advances in National Assembly

The French National Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee has approved a landmark bill aimed at streamlining the restitution of cultural property looted from Africa during the colonial era. Moving away from the previous requirement for case-by-case legislation, the new framework allows restitutions to be ordered by ministerial decree, provided they fall within the 1815–1972 timeframe. This advancement follows years of debate sparked by President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 pledge and the influential 2018 Sarr-Savoy report.

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The French Senate has unanimously passed a bill to streamline the process of returning artworks and artifacts looted from former colonies during the colonial era. The legislation, which now moves to the National Assembly for final approval, specifically targets items acquired between 1815 and 1972, aiming to remove legal hurdles that have previously required a separate parliamentary vote for each object's restitution.

A New Antonello da Messina Discovered. It Will Go to Auction in June: Could Sicily Step Forward to Buy It This Time?

Scoperto un nuovo Antonello da Messina. Andrà in asta a giugno: stavolta potrebbe farsi avanti la Sicilia per l’acquisto?

A newly discovered small wooden panel painting, depicting the face of a young beardless saint, has been attributed to the Renaissance master Antonello da Messina. The work, a fragment of a lost composition, will be auctioned on June 16 by Parisian auction house Ader alongside a signed early work by Peter Paul Rubens. Both come from an anonymous collector who purchased them in France decades ago.

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Christie’s has halted the sale of a rare 17th-century Pascaline arithmetic machine, originally scheduled for auction on November 19, after the Administrative Tribunal of Paris suspended its export license. The machine, invented by Blaise Pascal and estimated at €2–3 million, was pulled from sale at the consignor’s request following pressure from French cultural campaigners who argue it should be classified as a National Treasure to prevent its departure from France.

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Archaeologists from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) have uncovered a massive 43,000-square-foot Roman villa at Sainte-Nitasse in Auxerre, France, during excavations ahead of a road construction project. The villa, dating from the 1st to 3rd centuries C.E., features a central garden with a basin and fountain, thermal baths with an underfloor heating system, and rooms including a reception room, kitchen, and working area. Previously known from 19th-century records and a 1960s dig that revealed a smaller 7,500-square-foot building, the new findings reveal what Inrap calls “one of the great villas of Roman Gaul,” with thick walls, marble, mosaics, and frescoes indicating aristocratic owners.

Pussy Riot Shows Art by Russia’s Prisoners in New Protest Exhibition

Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova co-curated "Resistance Imprisoned," a protest exhibition at Ritsch-Fisch Galerie in Strasbourg, France, featuring artwork created by people currently or formerly imprisoned in Russia, including Ukrainian civilians. The show opened April 19 and runs through May 31, timed to coincide with the first month of the Venice Biennale, which opens May 9. Works include a pen sketch by Lyudmila Razumova, a photojournalist arrested for anti-war graffiti in 2022 and serving a seven-year sentence, alongside pieces by other political prisoners and Ukrainian POWs. The exhibition aims to highlight the human cost of Russia's war and its participation in international cultural events.

'Soulages-Hartung : Affinités électives' at Perrotin, Paris Marais, France on 25 Apr–30 May 2026

Perrotin in Paris Marais is presenting 'Soulages-Hartung: Affinités électives,' an exhibition exploring the friendship and artistic dialogue between Pierre Soulages (1919–2022) and Hans Hartung (1904–1989). The show features a never-before-screened filmed interview from the Fondation Hartung-Bergman, along with archival documents and rarely seen studio tools. It highlights their shared concerns as postwar abstract painters, their mutual support and gift exchanges—such as Soulages's walnut stain piece given to Hartung in 1948—and their contrasting approaches, with Hartung's explosive gestures versus Soulages's measured structures. The exhibition also reveals their lesser-known use of blue in the 1980s.

Inside Clarissa, the Hottest Art Show of Frieze Week

Clarissa, a new curatorial platform from Émergent Magazine, launched its first group exhibition during Frieze Week in London. Staged across three levels of a former club and sex shop in King’s Cross, the show features a mix of established and emerging artists—including Michael Dean, Hilary Lloyd, Tobias Spichtig, Joel Wycherley, Remi Ajani, and Tiago Francez—alongside works by Patricia L Boyd, Oscar Enberg, Hamish Pearch, and others. Curated by Reuben Beren James and Albert Riera Galceran in collaboration with the nomadic collective Soft Commodity, the exhibition aims to ignore art-world hierarchies and focus on intuitive dialogues between artists across generations and geographies.

From Mondrian to Man Ray, Here Are the Best-Sellers at Auction So Far This Year

The article analyzes the best-selling artworks at auction in the first half of 2025, covering Old Masters, Impressionist and Modern, and Postwar categories. Notable sales include a pair of Francesco Guardi views of Venice that sold for $10.5 million at Sotheby’s New York, a Piet Mondrian abstraction from the estate of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio that fetched just under $50 million, and a monumental rhinoceros-shaped desk by François-Xavier Lalanne that more than tripled its high estimate after a 13-minute bidding war. The report highlights that Old Masters sales were up 24% year-over-year, while top Impressionist and Modern lots saw lower prices compared to 2024.

Capture the Senses: Attraction and Horror in Early Modern Art // Haggerty

The Haggerty Museum at Marquette University will present 'Capture the Senses: Attraction and Horror in Early Modern Art' from August 22 to December 20, 2025. The exhibition draws from the museum's own collection to explore how Early Modern artists combined aesthetic pleasure with terrifying subject matter, featuring works by Albrecht Dürer, Ferdinand Bol, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Francesco Solimena. Curated by Kirk Nickel, the show examines themes such as the end times, human sacrifice, imperial decay, and fate, using paintings, prints, and sculpture from Europe and the Americas between the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution.

Meloni takes control of Italian museums

Meloni reprend en main les musées italiens

Italy’s culture ministry under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has appointed 14 new directors for so-called “second-tier” museums, reinforcing a shift away from the international “super-director” model introduced by the 2014 Franceschini reform. All appointees are Italian except for French director Axel Hémery, who was reappointed at the Pinacoteca di Siena due to his strong performance. The move follows the earlier ousting of foreign directors at top-tier museums, with only two foreign-born directors—Eike Schmidt and Gabriel Zuchtriegel—remaining, both of whom hold Italian citizenship.

How the State Supports Provenance Research

Comment l’État soutient la recherche de provenance

The French Ministry of Culture has created two specialized missions to assist museums in researching the provenance of their collections, addressing looted artworks, human remains, colonial acquisitions, and illicit trafficking. The Mission for Research and Restitution of Looted Cultural Property (M2RS), established in 2019, focuses on Nazi-era spoliations (1933-1945) with a budget of €220,000 annually, while the newer Mission "Provenance," launched in 2024 under curator Catherine Chevillot, covers human remains, colonial-era objects, and illicit goods with a €450,000 budget. These missions provide expertise, funding, and coordination with institutions like the Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation (CIVS), though most museums still only initiate provenance checks during acquisitions or donations.

Galleries condemned, bones exploding… The National Museum of Natural History is in a serious state of disrepair, warns its president

Galeries condamnées, ossements qui explosent… Le Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle est dans un grave état de vétusté, alerte son président

The president of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, Gilles Bloch, has issued a public alarm about the institution's severe state of disrepair. He warns that 74% of the museum complex is in grave danger, with urgent repairs costing an estimated €500 million needed to prevent collapse and reopen closed galleries. The deterioration includes mold-infested herbariums, flooded archives, and mineralized bones exploding due to heat and humidity, threatening the museum's world-class collection of over 70 million specimens.

Richmond Acquires an 18th-Century Terracotta

Richmond s'enrichit d'une terre cuite du XVIIIe siècle

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond has acquired a rare 18th-century terracotta sculpture by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Boudard. A winner of the Grand Prix de Sculpture in 1732, Boudard spent much of his career in Italy serving the court of Philip of Bourbon in Parma, which contributed to his relative obscurity in his native France despite his significant contributions to Roman and Parmese landmarks.

An ecstatic Mary Magdalene for Washington

Une Marie-Madeleine extatique pour Washington

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has acquired Artemisia Gentileschi's painting "Marie-Madeleine en extase" (Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy), dating from around 1625. The work was previously sold at a Sotheby's auction in France in 2014, continuing a trend of important Gentileschi works leaving Europe for American museums.