Tag Archives: Art

Renowned French Women Artists & Where to See their Art in Paris

All too frequently overshadowed by their male counterparts, women artists have gradually carved out their rightful place on France’s art scene. This foundation was laid by courageous women artists of the late-19th century, with more following little by little over the course of the 19th and into the 20th century. Here are ten of the most renowned artists who helped pave the way for today’s generation of women artists in France.

Portrait of Marie Antoinette, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun © Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN : © Christophe Fouin

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842)

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was one of the most renowned artists of the end of the 18th and first half of the 19th century. A child prodigy, her talent for drawing was noticed at a young age by her father, a pastel artist, who let her dabble with his supplies. After several years at a convent school, she began an apprenticeship with an artist. A professional artist by age 14, within only a few years she began painting high-level aristocrats and she was one of the first women accepted into a French painting academy, or guild. Her work soon attracted the attention of the royal court (then looking to rehabilitate the Queen’s reputation); she became the Queen’s official portraitist and painted her over thirty times. Fleeing during the Revolution, she was able to return to her artistic career under the Napoleonic regime.

Where to see her art: Musée du Louvre (French Painting Department), Versailles (le Petit Trianon)

Portrait de Rosa Bonheur dans son atelier au château de By
©Chateau de Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899)

Also the daughter of an artist father, Rosa Bonheur’s love of animal paintings began as a child and continued throughout her career. She studied animals in the suburbs of Paris, the Bois de Boulogne and the National Veterinary Institute. Bonheur’s first major success was Ploughing in the Nivernais, on display at the Musée d’Orsay, and was awarded a gold medal in 1849. Adored by the US market, Bonheur was the first female French artist to be awarded the Legion of Honour.

Where to see her art: Musée d’Orsay, Chateau de Rosa Bonheur (near Fontainebleau)

Le jardin à Bougival (1884) Berthe Morisot, and top image: Self-Portrait (1889), Berthe Morisot, both Musée Marmatton-Monet

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

A rebellious artist from her early days, Berthe began painting alongside her sister. A close friend of Édouard Manet, the two exchanged frequently on art; Morisot would later marry his brother. She was one of the founding members of les “Artistes Anonymes Associés,” a group of innovative artists including Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas who would later be called the impressionists. Today her work features in many of the world’s most prestigious museums.

Where to see her art: Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Marmottan-Monet

The Blue Room (1923), Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’Art Moderne

Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938)

Interested in drawing as a child, Marie-Clémentine Valadon, later called Suzanne, came from a poor family and was obligated to begin work aged 11. After an accident at the circus where she was an acrobatist, she started modeling for artists including Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. These encounters encouraged her to pursue her own artistic career. Known for her bold nudes as well as portraits, still lifes, and landscape, she became the first woman painter admitted to the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. Valadon and her son, the notable painter Maurice Utrillo, are celebrated at the Montmartre Museum, part of which comprises their former studio.

Where to see her art: Musée d’Orsay, Centre Pompidou and Musée de Montmartre

La Répétition (1936), Marie Laurencin, Centre Pompidou
Marie Laurencin (1883-1956)

A multi-talented artist born in Paris, Marie Laurencin got her start in art by learning the trade of porcelain painting at the École de Sèvres before she moved on to the Académie Humbert. It was here where she met Braque and Picabia, steering her in the direction of modernism. A fauvist before becoming a prominent cubist, Laurencin became a popular society portraitist after the Great War. She also dabbled in theatre set design and costumes.

Where to see her art: Musée de l’Orangerie and Centre Pompidou

Louise Bourgeois, Spider (Araignée) (1995). Don de la SAMAM en 1995 © The Easton Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2020 / Julien Vidal / Parisienne de Photographie

Louise Bourgeois (1911 – 2010)

One of the most renowned artists of the 20th century, Louise Bourgeois might be best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, however, her work evolved dramatically over her long career. After her mother’s death, Bourgeois abandoned the study of maths to pursue art, first at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École du Louvre, before moving on to independent academies in Montparnasse and Montmartre. It was after moving to New York with her husband, an art scholar, in the late 1930s that her career and individual style began to flourish, especially when she joined the American Abstract Artists Group in the 1950s.

Where to see her art: Centre Pompidou and the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris

Stravinksy Fountain ( 1983), Niki de Saint Phalle, Photo: Clement Dorval / Ville de Paris

Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930-2002)

Born in France and raised in the United States, Niki de Saint-Phalle is best remembered for her monumental, curvaceous and colourful sculptures. Nevertheless, Saint-Phalle was also a painter, filmmaker and illustrator. The self-taught artist portrayed her traumatic childhood through violent assemblages shot by firearms, which caught the attention of the international art world. She collaborated with other notable artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Jean Tinguely. Her sculptural commissions decorate public spaces around the world. In Paris, her most notable work on display is the colourful, nouveau realist Stravinksky Fountain created with her husband Jean Tinguely in 1983.

Where to see her art: Centre Pompidou.

Sophie Calle, Gallerie Perrotin, Paris

Sophie Calle (1953- )

Born in the Parisian suburb of Malakoff and raised in the South of France, Sophie Calle is one of the most prominent living artists on the international art stage. A globe-trotting feminist activist in her youth, Calle returned to Paris and turned towards art. Known for her very personal work exploring identity, Calle crisscrosses genres from writing to photography and from installation work to conceptual art. She frequently exhibits in contemporary art galleries around the world.

Where to see her art: Gallerie Perrotin (75003)

The Paris of the Impressionists

Although fields and country scenes are usually linked to Impressionism, most French Impressionist painters got their careers started off in urban Paris. As such, there are a number of places connected to the artists of this 19th-century art movement in and around the capital. After you’ve seen their works in the museums of Paris (suggestions at the end), head out onto the streets of Paris to see where the Impressionists painted.

Quai du Louvre, Claude Monet (1867)

The Seine River

The city’s iconic river appears in the works of the Impressionists, both inside and outside of Paris. Their love of the Seine might have been sparked in the early days of a small group of these artists, Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Bazille, who met in the studio of Charles Gleyre. It was located on the Right Bank of the river near on Quai du Louvre, in between Pont Neuf (more on this below) and the Pont des Arts, which was yet to be built.

Over the course of the next thirty years these artist commemorated the Seine dozens of times, often from one of the guinguette dance halls which once dotted the river in the city’s western suburbs, like on the Ile de la Grande Jatte or the Ile de Chatou. You can trace the path of their paintbrushes on Chatou’s Chemin des Impressionistes walking route.

The Pont-Neuf, Wreck of Bonne Mère, Camille Pissarro (1901)

The Pont Neuf

Perhaps due to its location near Gleyre’s studio, Paris’s oldest bridge became a recurrent subject matter of the Impressionists. Renoir, Monet and Pissarro all immortalised the bridge, the latter of whom painted it several times (including the top image), as was common with the Impressionists.

The Tuileries (Study), Claude Monet (1876)

The Tuileries Gardens

Also near Gleyre’s studio, the Impressionists might have also appreciated this beautiful historic garden for its natural qualities. Easier to get to than the Normand countryside, the park was a popular place at the time for gatherings, as seen in pre-Impressionist Edouard Manet’s Music in the Tuileries Gardens. Monet, Study of the Tuileries. Monet was fond of the park and painted it from various angles, like the above study of the gardens.

Le Pont de l’Europe, Gare Saint-Lazare, Claude Monet (1877)

Le Gare Saint-Lazare

Even though the Impressionists were more interested in nature, the technological advancements of the 19th century did occasionally appear in their art, including Paris’s first train station. Le Gare Saint-Lazare was also the station from where the Impressionists could access Normandy. The station was captured on several of Monet’s canvases. He explored different perspectives, from the interior as well as from the train bridge behind the station, le Pont de l’Europe, the locomotives billowing smoke creating a very impressionist effect.

Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Montmartre

Initially drawn to Montmartre in order to work on one of his most famous paintings, Renoir was likely the biggest fan of Montmartre of the Impressionists. He spent the summer of 1876 in this then very working class former village as he worked on Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette. The space he used as a studio and its gardens, where he painted The Swing, are now part of the Musée de Montmartre. From that moment until the early 20th century, Renoir lived and worked in Montmartre. Although the nearby cafés of Montmartre are rather touristy now, places like Le Consulat and La Bonne Franquette, were frequented by the Impressionists. Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh lived in Montmartre from 1886-88 and painted a number of scenes in the hilly district, included around a dozen paintings of the area’s moulin, its windmills, two of which still stand on rue Lepic, the same street the artist lived on (at #54)

Musee Marmottan Monet

Where to See Impressionist Art in Paris

Several Paris museums have important collections of Impressionist art. The most famous of these is the Musée d’Orsay, however, the Orangerie, the Musée Marmottan Monet and the Petit Palais museum also have wonderful collections and several of the works included above!

If you would like to delve deeper into the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, consider pursuing our Master’s in the History and Philosophy of Art. Learn more about it, and our other MA programmes in film, creative writing and Medieval studies, at this link.

Top Image: Morning, Winter Sunshine, Frost, the Pont-Neuf, the Seine, the Louvre, Camille Pissarro (1901)

The Best Contemporary Art Galleries in Paris

Paris is an artist’s city. In addition to its record number of museums, it is also the home to a plethora of art galleries. Visiting active art galleries is a great way to complement classroom study. Many of Paris’s top contemporary art galleries are located in the Upper Marais, yet some of the most avant-garde are in more alternative neighborhoods. Launch events, or vernissages, which are great occasions to mingle with the city’s art crowd over a free glass of wine. Some of these galleries also offer internships. Our list of the best contemporary art galleries is below – though be sure to check out what’s on on this handy site.

Galerie Daniel Templon

One of the oldest contemporary galleries in Paris, Daniel Templon opened his first gallery in 1966 and moved to his current location near the Centre Pompidou in 1972. Prominent in the global art world, the gallery represents both established international artists and the rising stars of tomorrow.

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin Photo: © Philippe Servent / Paris info and top image

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Another long-standing contemporary art establishment in Paris, Ropac got his start in the art world at the young age of 22 as the assistant of Joseph Beuys. He’s represented international art legends like Robert Mapplethorpe and Gilbert & George. His art empire now includes galleries in London, Salzburg, the Upper Marais and a vast art centre within a former 19th-century boiler house in Paris’s northeastern suburb of Pantin dedicated to young talents and large format exhibits.

Marian Goodman Gallery

Famed American galleriste Marian Goodman has had an outpost in the Upper Marais since 1999. Its regularly changing exhibits include the works of celebrated artists like Nan Golding, Steve McQueen and Annette Messager.

Emmanuel Perrotin

Now with three spaces in the Marais and over a dozen others around the world, Emmanuel Perrotin has come a long way since his humble beginnings with a gallery in his own apartment in 1990. On display expect to find contemporary art heavy-weights like Takashi Murakami, Sophie Calle and JR.

Galerie Jousse Entreprise

To see some of the best up and coming artists, track down this gallery in the Marais opened in 2001. You are more likely to find edgier artists as well as those experimenting with new technologies in their regularly changing exhibits.

Galerie Sultana

Many modern day artists live in the Belleville neighborhood, therefore, it makes sense that there are a few good art galleries in the area. The gallery of Guillaume Sultana’s is among the best. Here you’ll find anything from abstract painting to installations.

Galerie Le Feuvre

If you’re looking to see some urban art (and not out on the street), make your way to this gallery in the 8th arrondissement. Founded by Franck Le Feuvre in 2005, the gallery showcases the best street art as well as contemporary painting by artists like Invader, SupaKitch, Sowat and Sixe Paredes. Learn more about the top Parisian street artists in this article.

Itinerrance Gallery

This street art focused gallery is aptly located in the 13th arrondissement, one of the prime street art districts of the city. Opened by Mehdi Ben Cheikh in 2004, the gallery strives to support street artists and also collaborates with promoting and creating large scale street art murals in the area. Its exhibits feature both French and international street artists.

Le Bal

Tucked away on a cobbled lane near Place de Clichy, this independent arts venue mainly exhibits video, cinema, documentary photography and other new media. It has two floors of exhibition space and a great café where you can discuss what you saw afterwards with friends.

Further Art Studies & Explorations in Paris

Interested in studying art in a more in-depth way in Paris? Consider applying for our Master’s in the History and Philosophy of Art. More information on it and our other programmes here.

You might also enjoy these other art focused articles on our blog:

Alternative Places to See Art in Paris

There are literally hundreds of wonderful museums in Paris, however, art in Paris isn’t only about the studying the past. You can experience today’s art scene in Paris is by visiting some of the city’s more eclectic art venues. From former squats to art centres in repurposed historic buildings, here are some unique places to see art in Paris and perhaps discover the Picassos and Matisses of tomorrow.

Le Centquatre. Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra / CC

Le Centquatre

Located in the working class 19^th district, this former municipal undertaker’s building dating to the 1870s, was restored and reopened as an art centre in 2008. The sprawling venue hosts art exhibits, concerts, film screenings, dance performances, lectures and community events. It is also home to three cafés, including the hidden Café Caché as well as a bookstore and charity shop.

La Halle Saint Pierre

Tucked away beneath Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, this art space, occupying a former market hall, has been dedicated to “art brut”, or outsider art since 1995. In puts on several larger scale exhibits per year as well as smaller monthly shows featuring contemporary local artists. It has has an art-focused bookstore and lovely café where you can flip through your new book purchases or contemplate the art you’ve just viewed.

59 Rivoli (above and top photo). Facebook

59 Rivoli

A short walk from the most traditional of Paris’s art museums, the Louvre, is this quirky venue. One of the oldest squats in Paris, in 1999 a group of artists took over this abandoned Crédit Lyonnais Bank building. After years spent trying to evict them, the squatters won and the Marie de Paris (the Paris City Hall) bought the building and turned it into an official establishment in 2009. The unmissable building now has an art gallery on the street level, but the real fun is had roaming through the thirty plus art studios distributed over its six floors. Entrance is on a donation basis and the public can visit it from 1-8 pm from Tuesday to Sunday.

Le Générale Nord-Est / Facebook

La Générale Nord-Est

This association was first located within a defunct power plant in the 11^th arrondissement before moving to the 14th district. Another project endorsed by the the Marie de Paris, the association deems itself as a laboratory on artistic, political and social creation. The site has an active programme of exhibits as well as concerts, theatre shows and conferences, which are always open to anyone and with a “pay what you can” policy. See their website calendar for these events.

DOC! Photo: Franck Arnault / Facebook

DOC!

This art centre occupies a former technical high school in also in 19th district, near Place des Fetes. The spacious 3000-square meter complex includes 24 workshops, two temporary artist residences, five shared workshops for woodworking, metal-working, print-making, theatre and video post-production. These art forms and the artists in residents are showcased in the venues regularly changing exhibits.

Le Plateau Paris / Facebook

Le Plateau

Another art venue in the 19^th arrondissement, this exhibition space is Paris’s branch of the FRAC, a French governmental organisation that supports and promotes contemporary art. In addition to having regular exhibits, especially by younger artists, the centre has outreach and education projects and a curator in residence programme.

Art in Paris goes beyond indoor spaces as well. Learn more about street art in our blog on top street artists in Paris.

The Best Outdoor Contemporary Sculptures in Paris

Paris is one of the best cities in the world for strolling, the city is an open-air museum for more reasons than the obvious. Its buildings tell the city’s 2000 years of history (including new cutting edge buildings like in this article), but you can also admire some great art, mostly in the form of sculptures, on display in various places around the city. From beautifying the tramway to accentuating parks, here are the some of the best contemporary sculptures displayed around the city.

Bouquet of Tulips, Jeff Koons (above photo)

One of the most recent additions to Paris’s collection of outdoor art is this controversial work by International art superstar Jeff Koons. Inaugurated in October 2019, the oversized bouquet of flowers was gifted by the artist to the city of Paris and its citizens as a gesture of solidarity and hope following the November 2015 terrorist attacks. Nestled within the Champs-Élysées gardens, between the Petit Palais and Place de la Concorde, the ballooning bouquet rises to a height of 12 metres and consists of 11 flowers, instead of the typical dozen, the missing flower symbolising the void caused by the attacks. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s growing on Parisians!

Le Bel costumé, Jean Dubuffet. Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra / Flickr

Le Bel Costumé, Jean Dubuffet

One usually thinks of classical sculptures when imagining the Tuileries Gardens, however, these formal royal gardens are actually home to a number of contemporary and modern sculptures, this being the one that stands out the most. In signature Dubuffet style the four-metre high sculpture, The Beautiful Costume in English, is an outlined figure in white and black with sections of primary colours. Originally designed in 1973 for the entrance to a wing of the National Gallery of Art of Washington, the current piece was created in 1998 and installed in this location in 2000.

Tree of Vowels, Giuseppe Penone. Photo: L R / Flickr

Tree of Vowels, Giuseppe Penone

Also in the Jardin des Tuileries, but contrary to the Dubuffet, this work by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone almost goes unnoticed. Blending perfectly into its natural environment is what appears to be a fallen tree. Penone’s art often relates to nature, and the tree is a common subject matter of his. The work was commissioned by the French State in 1999, the year in which torrential storms felled thousands of trees in and around the capital. Cast in bronze the 30 metre-long sculpture was inaugurated the next year in 2000. Once you find its discreet location (in a side section on the south side of the garden), you can contemplate the work in tranquility on a nearby bench.

Les Enfants du Monde, Rachid Khimoune. Photo: Rachid Khimoune

The Children of the World, Rachid Khimoune

Installed on a grassy lawn in the east end Parc de Bercy, near the Simone-de-Beauvoir bridge, are these whimsical sculptures by French artist Rachid Khimoune. Commissioned for year 2000, the artist chose to represent the 21st century with 21 bronze statues depicting children from 21 countries. The artist himself has Algerian roots, and on his travels around the globe, he collected urban items, such as cobblestones, sewer plates and broken bitumen, which he used to create the works.

La danse de la fontaine émergente, Chen Zhen and Xu Min. Photo: Une Autre Asie

La Danse de la Fontaine Emergente, Chen Zhen and Xu Min

Emerging from the ground of the Place Augusta-Holmes in the 13th arrondissement is this sculpture by Chen Zhen and Xu Min, The Dance of the Emerging Fountain. The work was a commissioned by the City of Paris in 1999 to French-Chinese artist, Chen Zhen, however, the artist passed away the following year before finishing the work. Fortunately, it was decided that another artist with Chinese roots, Xu Min, would complete the sculpture. The stylised dragon, made of transparent tubes and metal, appears to snake in and out for the paving-stoned ground of the square. The 13th district’s is home to Paris’s largest Chinatown and the dragon is of course an important symbol for the Chinese. A modern “fountain”, the work, which comes out of an underground water storage facility, has water flowing through it and is lit up at night.

Monochrome for Paris, Nancy Rubins. Photo: Fred Romero / Flickr

Monochrome for Paris, Nancy Rubins

Also found in the 13th district, in the Esplanade Vidal-Naquet, this sculpture by American artist Nancy Rubins was inaugurated in 2013. The monumental work, rising to 10 metres and consists of a grouping of 50 stainless steel canoes and 10 boats, is aptly found near the Seine River. The work falls within the artist’s “Monochrome” series, with similar works in other cities, like Las Vegas and Chicago. It was commissioned, along with 14 works by other artists, by the city of Paris to add a cultural touch to the T3 tramway line. You can hop on and off the tram to see all the works, including 1SQMH (One Square Meter House) by French artist and architect Didier Fiuza Faustino (Porte d’Ivry station), Tchaïkovski by the French artist Claude Lévêque (Montsouris), From Boullée to Eternity by American artist Dan Graham (Porte de Versailles) and “Murmurs,” a sound installation by French artist Christian Boltanski (Cité Universitaire).

The Centaur, César. Photo: Oeil de Verre / Flickr

The Centaur, César

Although this work is a little older, its central location in Place Michel Degré in the 6th arrondissement means that you’ll likely walk by it at some point during your time in Paris. Made by prominent French artist César Baldaccini, the original model of the sculpture, the half-man half horse figure from Greek Mythology, was created by the artist in 1976 as a tribute to great Pablo Picasso. If you look closely you can find a small statue of Liberty hiding in the breastplate of the centaur. The sculpture was among 100 works commissioned by the Minister of Culture Jack Lang in 1983. You can see another momental work by César, The Thumb (1994), at La Défense, the business district located to the west of Paris which is home to a number of other modern and contemporary sculptures.

Sculpture lovers may also want to take a stroll through the Jardin Tino Rossi, a park located along the Seine in the 5th district which contains the Musée de la Sculpture en Plein Air, an open-air sculpture museum with thirty sculptures, including another work by César as well as works by Brancusi and Zadkine.

If you’re interested in exploring more urban art in Paris, have a look at our article on the top street artists in Paris.

Top Photo: Bouquet of Tulips, Jeff Koons – Sortir a Paris

Creative Writing Lecturer Yelena Moskovich publishes article in Aperture

In her new article for Aperture, creative writing lecturer Yelena Moskovich of the Paris School of Arts and Culture interviews Photographer Vasantha Yogananthan.

Entitled Finding Trance and Transcendence in Vasantha Yogananthan’s Photographic Epic, the interview revolves around the latest installment of multivolume series of photobooks, set in India and Sri Lanka, by the French photographer of half Sri Lankan descent. Yogananthan retraces the saga of Ramayana, exploring how the ancient Hindu epic is celebrated in contemporary Indian and Sri Lankan society.

Read the full interview at this link.