Paris Museum Exhibitions for 2025-2026 – Art, History & Culture

Paris has always been a cultural beacon, and its museums are no exception. The 2025-2026 Paris museum exhibitions calendar presents an impressive array of offerings, from world-renowned institutions like the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay to the more intimate settings of the Petit Palais and Musée Marmottan-Monet.

Each exhibition is an opportunity to dive deeper into the art and history of the city. The freshly restored Musée Carnavalet adds yet another dimension to an already vibrant scene. Even the Natural History Museum is getting in the act with one of the more spectacular Paris museum exhibitions — Déserts: The Science of Arid Lands.

Paris Museum Exhibitions: The Louvre

The Louvre & its Pyramid, photo by Mark Craft

When the most popular museum in the world announces its new exhibitions, the art world takes notice. Home to one of the most comprehensive collections on the planet, this historic institution offers more than just its masterpieces like the Venus de Milo and da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

Each year, the Louvre brings fresh insight into its expansive collection through carefully chosen exhibitions that showcase art across cultures and time periods. 2025 will be no different. Prepare to discover works that challenge, inspire, and deepen our understanding of art in its many forms.

Near Eastern Antiquities in Dialogue

See ten ancient artworks from central Asia, Syria, Iran and Mesopotamia on loan from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dating from the 4th millennium BCE to the 5th century CE, this remarkable exhibition pairs ancient sculptures reunited for the first time in modern times.

• Louvre Museum
• Ends September 29, 2025
• Information

Africa Rising II — Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud's Africa Rising II debuts at the Louvre, blending inspirations from the Winged Victory of Samothrace to African American history. Explore powerful sculptures that celebrate beauty, resilience, and transcendent artistry.

• The Louvre
• Ends 10 September 2025
• Information…

Jacques‑Louis David – Revolution in Paint

Jacques‑Louis David painted the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, and the wreckage that followed — not as a bystander, but as a participant. He used neoclassical form to stage modern upheaval, turning political events into moral dramas and mythmaking on canvas. This exhibition brings together over 100 works, from early ambitions to imperial commissions, including rarely shown drawings, studies, and unfinished pieces that shed light on his creative evolution.

Here, David isn't just the master behind The Death of Marat or Napoleon Crossing the Alps. He's a man navigating exile, patronage, and the volatility of power — through paint. His art didn't simply reflect history; it shaped how it was seen, remembered, and manipulated. This is the full portrait: painter, propagandist, survivor.

• The Louvre
• October 15, 2025 to January 26, 2026
• Information…

The Carracci Drawings – The Making of the Galleria Farnese

Before ceiling frescoes soared above Roman palaces, they started on paper — as sketches revised, scaled up, and tested. This exhibition brings together a rare set of preparatory drawings by Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico Carracci, the three Bolognese artists behind the Galleria Farnese. From lightning-quick sketches to monumental full-size cartoons, the show captures the creative engine behind one of Baroque Rome's most celebrated interiors.

Rather than tilting your head to gaze at distant ceilings, you're invited to walk through the Carracci's visual thought process. The drawings reveal how bodies were built, compositions rehearsed, and ideas reworked — until they burst into the full theatrical drama of fresco. It's a rare chance to watch an artistic collaboration unfold, line by line.

• The Louvre
• November 5, 2025 to February 2, 2026
• Information…

Paris Museum Exhibitions: Musée d'Orsay

Musée d'Orsay seen from the Seine, photo by Mark Craft

A former Belle époque train station, the Musée d'Orsay today stands as the world's preeminent museum of Impressionism and 19th-century art. Its transformation in the mid-1980s gave a fitting home to the masters of light and color, from Monet and Degas to Renoir and Van Gogh.

A recent refresh of the museum's layout and color palette allows these iconic works to shine even brighter, offering a vivid journey through a pivotal era in art history. In 2025, step inside and explore a curated path through the beauty, innovation, and timelessness of these masterpieces.

Sargent – The Paris Years

Before John Singer Sargent dazzled London and New York, he sharpened his style in Paris. This exhibition gathers more than 100 works from his formative decade—portraits, sketches, and salon submissions that show a young painter with big ambition and an even bigger brush.

• Musée d'Orsay
• September 23, 2025 to January 11, 2026
• Information…

Love & Art Through Her Lens

Gabrielle Hébert was a photographer, performer, romantic, and quiet rebel. Her lens captured more than faces—it caught emotions mid-bloom and identities in flux. Long overlooked, her work now gets the attention it always deserved, and it still feels startlingly fresh.

• Musée d'Orsay
• October 28, 2025 to February 15, 2026
• Information…

Paul Troubetzkoy – The Sculptor Prince

Paul Troubetzkoy sculpted as if he were sketching — fast, loose, and full of motion. This exhibition gathers over 150 works that show how he broke with academic traditions and breathed life into bronze, capturing movement, mood, and personality with remarkable immediacy.

• Musée d'Orsay
• September 30 to January 11, 2026
• Information…

Paris Exhibitions: Musée du Quai Branly

Color blocking at Musée du Quai Branly

Musée du Quai Branly, opened in 2006, offers a fascinating glimpse into the diverse cultures of the world, focusing on Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Unlike the more classical institutions in Paris, this museum takes a broader approach, examining the shared human experience through art, artifacts, and cultural expression from across the globe.

Located just a short walk from the Eiffel Tower, it feels both modern and grounded, a space where history and contemporary design intersect. Architect Jean Nouvel, known for his daring structures, designed the museum with a vision that steps away from the traditional.

Rather than grand staircases or manicured lawns, Quai Branly is surrounded by a lush, natural garden that feels untamed and alive. Small landscapes featuring native French plants create an organic setting, in harmony with the museum's mission of exploring the beauty and complexity of world cultures. Let's take a look at its Paris museum exhibitions for 2025 and beyond.

Taro Okamoto – Japan Reinvented

This exhibition highlights Taro Okamoto (1911-1996) a central figure of the Japanese avant-garde art movement. Famous for his bold paintings, sculptures and murals, he studied in Paris at the Sorbonne in the 1930s.

• Musée du Quai Branly
• Ends September 7, 2025
• Information…

The Dakar–Djibouti Mission Revisited

Between 1931 and 1933, French ethnographers led the Dakar–Djibouti mission — a colonial roadshow that swept across Africa collecting thousands of objects, photographs, and even human remains. This exhibition pulls apart the legacy with a sharp eye and fresh research from African and European scholars.

• Musée du Quai Branly
• Ends September 14, 2025
• Information…

Musika Automatika – Sound & Memory

Junior Mvunzi's Musika Automatika is an audible mash‑up of rumba, field recordings and live‑drum dialogue with Austrian percussionist Andi Stecher. Think memory‑rich loops, unexpected grooves and sonic textures that invite you in and leave you listening differently.

• Musée du Quai Branly
• Ends February 26, 2026
• Information…

Petit Palais – Paris Museum Exhibitions

The Petit Palais, photo by Mark Craft

For a museum experience on a more intimate scale, the Petit Palais offers a fascinating visit. Tucked in across from the grander Grand Palais, this gem on Avenue Winston Churchill houses the Fine Arts Museum of Paris.

Built for the 1900 Universal Expo, the Petit Palais is a stunning blend of Beaux-Arts architecture and art collections that span centuries. Its charming courtyard and peaceful café invite visitors to linger, offering a moment of tranquility amidst the hustle of central Paris. Admission to the permanent collection is free, making it a must-stop during your explorations.

Jean‑Baptiste Greuze – Childhood Unmasked

Jean‑Baptiste Greuze took 18th‑century sentimentality and gave it a canvas. His children weep, pine, plead, and occasionally smirk. The show pairs familiar paintings with little-known sketches to tell a story about art, Enlightenment morals, and how childhood became emotionally serious business.

• Petit Palais
• September 16 to January 25, 2026
• Information…

Pekka Halonen – Finnish Nature Reimagined

Finnish painter Pekka Halonen blends Gauguin's influence, Japonism, plein-air freedom and synthesist flair to reframe Finland's wild landscapes. Over 100 works trace his evolution as a nature-lover, father of eight, conservationist — and modernist quietly ahead of his time.

• Petit Palais
• November 4 to February 22, 2026
• Information…

Musée Picasso – Paris Museum Exhibitions

Musée Picasso, photo from Musée Picasso by Fabien Campoverde

The Musée Picasso is a jewel of the Marais, set in the historic and grand Hotel Salé. There are over 5,000 works that cover Picasso's paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings, studies, drafts, notebooks, etchings and letters.

The museum's collection is displayed in a way that let's you view Picasso's life and work chronologically. Perhaps most interesting is the display of the work by other artists that Picasso himself collected. If you are a Picasso fan, this is a must-see destination in Paris.

Anna Maria Maiolino – I Am Here, Estou Aqui

Italian-born, Brazil-based, and Golden Lion winner at Venice 2024, Anna Maria Maiolino brings her first French solo show. Expect clay sculptures, intimate drawings, videos and performances that span six decades—an active practice still ticking, shaped by exile, memory, politics and gender.

• Musée Picasso
• Ends September 21, 2025
• Information…

Guillermo Kuitca – Cubistoid Chapel

The Cubistoid Chapel is a full-room mural installation created by Guillermo Kuitca—his first major project in France. It's not religious, but reverent in its own way. The space becomes a meditative box of layered histories, with sharp angles and subtle echoes of Picasso's visual language.

• Musée Picasso
• Ends December 31, 2027
• Information…

La Collection – Revoir Picasso

In 2014 Pablo Picasso's most important public collection was permanently installed in the lavish setting of the Hôtel Salé, a mansion in the Marais. A decade later, the museum is paying homage with a three-year retrospective starting with a tribute to Françoise Gilot. Beyond her famous book, Living with Picasso, published in 1965, Gilot's career spanned from Réalités nouvelles to her large compositions of the emblematic paintings of the 1980s.

• Musée Picasso
• Ends March 12, 2027
• Information…

Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Detail, La Fée Electricité by Raoul Dufy, photo by Mark Craft

The Paris Museum of Modern Art (MAM) is a treasure trove of 20th and 21st-century creativity, offering visitors a chance to immerse themselves in the vibrant world of modern and contemporary art. Located in the iconic Palais de Tokyo, the museum is home to over 15,000 works that highlight key artistic movements, from Fauvism to abstract art. Its permanent collection features masterpieces by Picasso, Braque, Delaunay, and Bonnard, making it an essential stop for art lovers.

The museum's spacious galleries provide the perfect setting to appreciate the diverse exhibits — ranging from paintings and sculptures to photography and multimedia — and its Paris museum exhibitions. With free access to its permanent collection, this cultural landmark invites art enthusiasts to experience Paris's dedication to modern art.

Philippe Perrot – Intimate Mindscapes

Philippe Perrot painted psychic family portraits — visceral, messy, funny — using oil and pharmacy pigments on yellow-ochre grounds. His figures float through fractured rooms like hallucinatory sketches of kinship, trauma and uneasy hilarity. Expect domestic drama with an antiseptic twist.

• MAM
• Ends November 2, 2025
• Information…

Musée de l'Orangerie

At Musée de l'Orangerie, photo by Mark Craft

Tucked into the Jardin des Tuileries right at the Place de la Concorde, the 1852 stone structure facing the Seine was once the greenhouse that helped to nurture orange trees for the garden. (There's also an orangerie in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and it's still used to store plants during the winter.)

Now, the former orangerie has become the permanent home of Monet's stellar waterlily murals. Two large, purpose-built, ovals rooms display these heroic works of are. But, the Orangerie Museum also has more artistic surprises on display, including this year's exhibitions.

Michel Paysant – Monet Seen by Eye

Michel Paysant tracks how real people look at Monet — then turns that invisible dance of eyes into delicate drawings. The result: a quietly dazzling collision of tech and tenderness, with Monet's Water Lilies as the anchor point for a whole new kind of portrait.

• Musée de l'Orangerie
• October 4, 2025 to January 6, 2026
• Information…

Musée Marmottan-Monet

The exterior of Musée Marmot, famous for its Monet collection

If, like us, you love Claude Monet and the whole Impressionist movement in art, you won't want to miss Musée Marmottan-Monet in the 16th Arrondissement. (Its name is a clue!) Set at the foot of charming Parc Ranlegh in the posh neighborhood of Passy, this museum contains the largest collection of Monet paintings in the world.

The existing museum was the beneficiary of the estate of Michel Monet, Claude's son. He left his father's art to the state of France at the time of his death in 1966 — including the iconic Impression: Sunrise, the painting that gave the movement its name — instantaneously turning Musée Marmottan into the world's greatest Claude Monet museum.

L'empire du sommeil – Dreams, Rest & Folly

Sleep gets serious — but weird — in L'empire du sommeil. Art meets science, myths meet medicine, and your bedroom becomes historical stage. From biblical slumbers to erotic dreams, the show reveals how sleep shaped — and shaded—our cultural imagination.

• Musée Marmatton Monet
• October 9, 2025 to March 1, 2026
• Information…

Musée Carnavalet

Musée Carnavalet, photo Musée Carnavalet

Reopened after a meticulous five-year renovation, the Musée Carnavalet, dedicated to the history of Paris, is a treasure trove of stories and artifacts that trace the city's evolution. Chief architect François Châtillon led the revitalization, bringing modern accessibility to its grand halls while preserving the museum's historical charm.

With newly installed lifts and ramps, reimagined displays, and digital touch-points, the museum welcomes a new generation of visitors. Entrance to the permanent collection remains free, offering a rich glimpse into the past without breaking the bank.

Paris Museum Exhibitions: Centre Pompidou

Centre Pompidou with its infamous inside-out design

Since its bold opening in 1977, and its early-21st-century makeover, Centre Pompidou has been a hub for modern and contemporary art. This year promises yet another dynamic series of exhibitions that continue to push the boundaries of artistic expression.

The museum is undergoing another multi-year closure and building upgrade that began in September 2025, for asbestos removal and a major building upgrade. During the closure the museum's artworks will be relocated elsewhere in Paris and France. Reopening is scheduled for 2030, but experience with other major renovation projects in Paris make us think that may stretch out another year or two! Whatever happens with the reno, act now to experience Centre Pompidou's Paris museum exhibitions and its vibrant permanent collection.

Musée de la Vie Romantique

Once you've spent time at the big museums of Paris, you're going to want to get off the tourist track to take in one of the relaxing, charming, and romantic museums of Paris. Musée de la Vie Romantique, named for the Romantic Movement of the early 19th century is one of those.

However, Musée de la Vie Romantique is closed for renovation until some time in 2026. Visit its website for updates and news about future exhibitions.

Maison de Victor Hugo

Place des Vosges, photo by Mark Craft

In a 17th-century townhouse on classic Place des Vosges is the Paris home of novelist Victor Hugo, now a museum of his life and work. La Maison has recently been renovated and now sports added space, restored treasures, and new acquisitions. The upgrades also include a tea room and a small garden to relax in. Definitely a treasure among the small museums of Paris. Visit the website for exhibition updates…

Other Paris Museum Exhibitions

David Hockney at Fondation Louis Vuitton

This David Hockney retrospective is a vibrant celebration of one of the most influential artists of our time. From bold landscapes to intimate portraits, the exhibition brings together works that highlight his boundless creativity and innovation. With a career spanning decades, Hockney's art continues to inspire and captivate, offering a glimpse into his unique perspective on the world.
• Fondation Louis Vuitton
• Ends January 9, 2026
• Information…

Déserts – Life in the Sands

The Deserts exhibition offers an in-depth look at the ecosystems, survival strategies, and biodiversity of some of the most extreme environments on Earth. From adaptive wildlife to resilient plants, the display highlights the delicate balance that sustains life in arid regions.

• Natural History Museum
• Ends November 30
• Information…

A Grand Reopening with Art in Motion

After being closed for years for the Paris Olympics and for renovation, the Grand Palais reopens with a celebration of art that moves — literally. Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely's kinetic sculptures, bold colors, and wild imagination set the stage for a new chapter in this legendary space. The exhibition honors their revolutionary spirit, where movement, humor, and invention take center stage.

• Grand Palais
• Ends January 4, 2026
• Information…