Suzanne Valadon, Willy Ronis, Gérard Deschamps, Tarsila di Amaral… The six exhibitions not to be missed in 2025

In the Brazil of Tarsila do Amaral

A key figure in Brazilian modernism, the painter Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) remains largely unknown in Europe. This gap has now been filled by the major retrospective currently taking place at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, until February 2, before heading to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

From the 1920s, from a bourgeois family of coffee producers from São Paulo, Tarsila forged an original body of work, shaped between Brazil and Paris, where she rubbed shoulders with the cream of the avant-garde – Blaise Cendrars, Cocteau, Braque, Picasso, Léger… His “Brazilian” iconographic universe, put to the test of cubism and primitivism then in vogue in Paris, is at the origin of the movement anthropophagous, born in São Paulo in 1928, advocating the absorption of indigenous traditions and their reinterpretation through modern European Art, thus reaffirming Brazilian identity in all its cultural richness and singularity. a colorful, visionary and mysterious work.

“Tarsila do Amaral. Painting modern Brazil”, until February 9, at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris and from February 21 to 1^is June, at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. From €7.50 to €15. guggenheim-bilbao.eus

Maurice Denis, elsewhere as inspiration

In 1888, with Paul Sérusier, Pierre Bonnard, Henri-Gabriel Ibels and Paul-Élie Ranson, Maurice Denis formed a group of young painters united by a quest for artistic renewal, who adopted the now famous name “Nabis”. In the decade that followed, he, who was already preoccupied with the study of the masters, found his own path, developing an art – known as “new classicism” – regularly nourished by everything around him.

In Charente, the exhibition, built around the painting “Forêt de Mörschwil” (Switzerland) preserved by the Angoulême Museum, delves into the theme of travel through the artist’s numerous travels throughout his life, in France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, the United States and especially Italy, which he visited many times.

Under the curatorship of Juliette Solvès, with the scientific assistance of Fabienne Stahl, curator at the Maurice-Denis departmental museum (Saint-Germain-en-Laye), she brings together sometimes unpublished paintings, numerous drawings, sketchbooks rarely exhibited, books illustrations, photographs, postcards and correspondence.

Angouleme. “Maurice Denis in search of elsewhere”, from June 20 to January 4, 2026, Angoulême museum. Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 1:45 p.m. to 6 p.m. €3.60 to €5.90.

The audacity of Suzanne Valadon

First a model for Gustave Wertheimer, Jean-Jacques Henner, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) then established herself as an artist in her own right, developing a singular body of work, marked by a representation of bodies devoid of idealization and conventional sensuality.

With an audacity that departs from academic conventions and the major dominant trends of his time, such as Impressionism, Fauvism or Cubism, Valadon occupies a pioneering role, long underestimated, in the emergence of artistic modernity. .

This unique itinerary is celebrated in an exhibition bringing together in Beaubourg, nearly 200 works from prestigious collections: Center Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, Orangerie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art of New York, Fondation de l’Hermitage, as well as important private collections.

Paris. “Suzanne Valadon”. From January 15 to May 26, in Beaubourg. Monday to Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. 14-17€.

Perspectives on childhood

Long perceived as a small replica of an adult or as a link in the continuity of the lineage, the child gradually acquired a distinct place under the influence of the Enlightenment, notably thanks to Rousseau and his “Émile or education” (1762). This awareness marks the emergence of a new sensitivity, where childhood is endowed with a new subjectivity and interest.

The exhibition “Wise as a picture? Childhood in the Eye of Artists (1790-1850)”, produced in partnership with the Tessé Museum and the Louvre, explores these transformations through works by Géricault, Girodet, Boilly, Delacroix, Ingres, and artists unfairly overlooked like Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet-Husson or Sophie Tavel.

Painting, sculpture and photography intertwine, highlighting pieces from national collections. As a prelude, “Childhood Stories” presents works from the museum enriched with stories created during workshops in nursing homes and at the hospital center.

Bordeaux. “Childhood stories”. From June 13 to December 2, at the Museum of Fine Arts. “Wise as a picture? », from July 10 to November 3, Galerie des Beaux-Arts. Wednesday to Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. €4.40 to €8.

In the wonderful eye of Willy Ronis

There is this little boy hurrying along, a big smile on his lips, a baguette under his arm. This couple, kissing at the top of the Bastille column. Again, this trade unionist haranguing her comrades during the strikes at Citroën in 1938. These iconic photos by Willy Ronis (1910-2009), can be found at the Parvis de Pau, in a rich selection of around 80 photographs retracing the work of this son of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe – a Lithuanian mother, piano teacher, and a Ukrainian father, artisan photographer – who embrace the profession in 1936.

Drawn from the funds of the Media Library of Heritage and Photography, this highly anticipated retrospective brings together the themes dear to Willy Ronis: social struggles, but also the wonder nestled at the heart of the most ordinary moments. A luminous journey through his universe, where everyday life rises into poetry.

Paul. « Willy Ronis par Willy Ronis ». From January 23 to June 14, Le Parvis Espace Culturel. Free entry Monday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Gérard Deschamps, major figure of New Realism

There is Yves Klein and his monochromes, his “Anthropométries” and his IKB (“International Klein Blue”). César and his cuts, Daniel Spoerri and his “trap paintings”, Jacques Villeglé and his torn posters, without forgetting Jean Tinguely and his moving sculptures or even Niki de Saint Phalle.

But the New Realists, a movement founded in 1960 around Pierre Restany and advocating a “poetic recycling of urban, industrial, advertising reality”, also includes Gérard Deschamps, the youngest of the group and the least known, who has nevertheless been the subject of a major retrospective at the LAAC in Dunkirk in 2020.

This native of Lyon, now 87 years old, will be in the spotlight this summer at the Anglet contemporary art center, with an exhibition spread across two locations (Villa Beatrix and Galerie Pompidou). The opportunity to (re)discover the protean work of this obsessive “assemblage artist” and virtuoso colorist, who swaps brushes and paint for everyday objects: women’s underwear, skateboards, beach balls and many other objects and materials.

Anglet (64). At the Contemporary Art Centerfrom July 5.