Six Exhibitions Worth the Trip to Paris This Spring
Hilma af Klint at the Grand Palais, Leonora Carrington at the Luxembourg, and Henri Rousseau at the Orangerie lead a blockbuster season.
Paris is always worth visiting for art, but spring 2026 delivers a concentration of exhibitions that elevates the trip from pleasant to essential. Here are six shows to plan around.
Hilma af Klint at the Grand Palais is the centerpiece of the season. This is the first major presentation of the Swedish artist's work in France, including the monumental Temple Paintings that remain among the most astonishing objects in early twentieth-century art. Af Klint created the first known abstract works years before Kandinsky, yet her instructions that the paintings not be shown publicly until twenty years after her death delayed recognition by decades. The Grand Palais is the right setting for work conceived at architectural scale.
Leonora Carrington at the Musee du Luxembourg runs through July 19. The exhibition surveys the surrealist painter, writer, and sculptor whose dreamlike imagery drew on Mexican mythology, Celtic folklore, and a personal cosmology that defied any single category. Carrington's recent critical reappraisal has been one of the art world's most overdue corrections.
Henri Rousseau: The Ambition of Painting at the Musee de l'Orangerie (March 25 through July 20), organized with the Barnes Foundation, brings together approximately 50 paintings by the self-taught artist. Shown steps from Monet's Water Lilies, the context emphasizes Rousseau's radical ambition rather than his outsider mythology.
Paris in spring 2026 is not competing with New York or London. It is offering something neither city can.
Lee Miller at the Musee d'Art Moderne (April 3 through July 26) assembles 250 works tracing Miller's career from Vogue model to surrealist photographer to war correspondent. Organized with Tate Britain and the Art Institute of Chicago, the show promises previously unseen work alongside the iconic images.
Martin Parr: Global Warning at the Jeu de Paume presents 180 photographs chronicling consumerism, mass tourism, and environmental excess with Parr's signature combination of satire and affection. Curated in collaboration with the photographer before his passing in late 2025, the show serves as both retrospective and farewell.
The Fondation Cartier General Exhibition at its spectacular new building across from the Louvre runs through August 23. Nearly 600 works by over 100 artists featured by the foundation since 1984, shown in Jean Nouvel's new exhibition space. The building itself is reason enough to visit.