When is it worth it to book a vacation to Paris just to visit museums and catch the year’s best exhibitions? Answer: Always, but 2020 provides more inspiration than ever, beginning with the fact that the indefatigable Christo will return to the city to wrap the Arc de Triomphe with 25,000 square meters of recyclable, silvery-blue polypropylene fabric and 7,000 meters of red rope in September.
Meanwhile, from the late-2019 blockbusters of da Vinci and El Greco that reach into the early months of 2020 to a glorious Turner retrospective later in the year, there are myriad inspirations for Parisian museum-chasing in 2020. Here are the 10 Paris museum exhibits not to miss this year.
!["Greco" Retrospective At Le Grand Palais In Paris](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/gettyimages-1181002742.jpg?resize=980:* ""Greco" Retrospective At Le Grand Palais In Paris")
Greco
Le Grand Palais
Through February 10, 2020
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The central blockbuster of Paris’s Fall 2019/Early 2020 season might well be da Vinci at the Louvre, but this major retrospective devoted to the 16th-century master at the Grand Palais is every bit as monumental—in fact, the first major exhibition in France ever dedicated to Domenico Theotokopoulos, known worldwide as El Greco.
Marche et Démarche, A History of the Shoe
Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Through February 23, 2020
Tackling the cultural, anthropological, and enduringly aesthetic nature of that item of function and high fashion, this thought-provoking exhibition at the private institute housed in the western wing of the Louvre includes approximately 500 shoes—including one belonging to Marie-Antoinette—paintings and photographs, films, and other (hardly) pedestrian ephemera. (Bonus for shoe devotées: Christian Louboutin, Exhibition[iste]—a major exhibition devoted to the renowned designer—runs at the Palais de la Porte Dorée February 26-July 26, 2020.)
Charlotte Perriand: Inventing a New World
Fondation Louis Vuitton
Through February 24, 2020
This inspiring tribute to the visionary architect and interior designer’s provocative life and work is yet another reason to explore Frank Gehry’s sweeping 2014 creation in the Bois de Boulogne. Perriand stood at a rich intersection of 20th century art, design, and architecture (not to mention the role of women in society), and this retrospective reflects the depth and range of her scope.
Soulages at the Louvre
Musée du Louvre
Through March 9, 2020
Bon anniversaire to Pierre Soulages, a renowned figure in non-figurative painting who celebrates his 100th birthday on Christmas Eve, 2019, and who continues to work with passion and vigor. A special exhibit in the Louvre’s Salon Carré brings this most lively of French artists to larger life (and includes several outsize pieces created by Soulages in 2019). Consider it a bracing complement to da Vinci down the hall.
Helena Rubinstein: Madame’s Collection
Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac
Through June 28, 2020
Proclaimed, aptly, the empress of beauty by none other than Jean Cocteau, Rubinstein was also a pioneering entrepreneur and collector who drew attention to often-overlooked African and Oceanic arts along with the avant-garde of her time. This exhibition of 60 pieces from Rubinstein’s collection of more than 400 works puts African art particularly at the center—apt, again, considering the non-Western focus of this excellent museum commissioned by former French president Jacques Chirac.
Cézanne and the Master Painters: A Dream of Italy
Musée Marmottan Monet
February 27-July 5, 2020
Paris’s most alluring conversation this spring is between the beloved forerunner of Cubism with a stimulating assemblage of works from Tintoretto, El Greco, Poussin, Pirandello, and more Italian masters. It should be noted that this marvelous townhouse museum with its beautifully preserved Empire-style decor is also home to the world’s largest Monet permanent collection.
James Tissot
Musée d’Orsay
March 24-July 19, 2020
This major retrospective dedicated to the 19th-century master beloved by Paris society is the first in the city since 1985. This fresh look (fresh, as it were, from four months at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) focuses on Tissot’s work in social context as well in light of materials, his painting techniques, and his expansion into prints, photography, and even cloisonné enamels.
Turner: Paintings and Watercolors from the Tate
Jacquemart-André Museum
March 13-July 20, 2020
Paris will see the light anew from the hand of the one of the greatest masters of its evocation, in this major retrospective of 60 watercolors and 10 oils, some of which have never been exhibited in France, and which reveal the evolution of the artist chronologically from his self-taught youth to his transcendent, searching maturity.
Vogue Paris – 100 Years
Palais Galliera
Autumn-Winter 2020
One of the world’s foremost fashion arbiters celebrates its centenary this year, and this stunning Neo-Renaissance museumdevoted to Paris fashion (and just emerging from an expansion and renovation) captures the moment in an exhibition that includes photographs, drawings, magazines, and film. There are few better ways to understand Paris’s role as the international capital of style it is.
Picasso-Rodin: One Exhibition, Two Locations
Musée Picasso and Musée Rodin
September 15, 2020-March 2021
Presented simultaneously in both (marvelous) museums, this new look at two of the world’s most famous artists explores their creative processes and overlaps: a stimulating dialogue on every level. At Musée Rodin, the lens is trained on artistic approaches, while at Musée Picasso the intimate space of the studio is explored. Both are not to be missed.
