Details

Intimate and Luminous Paintings on Paper

Discover Soulages, Another Light, a retrospective devoted to Pierre Soulages's paper paintings, revealing an intimate and experimental side of the artist where black is not darkness but a source of emerging luminescence through walnut stain, ink, and gouache.

At the Musée du Luxembourg, 130 works from the 1940s to 2000—including 25 never-before-seen pieces from the Soulages Museum in Rodez and the artist’s studio—offer a chronological journey exploring contrasts and textures that create a powerful and poetic abstraction.

This unique exhibition highlights a vital yet often overlooked aspect of Soulages’s work, where paper allows for immediate expression, transforming the material into a subtle dialogue between shadow and light.​

Dates and Duration

From September 17, 2025, to January 11, 2026, this four-month exhibition extends the Parisian artistic winter, inviting a gradual immersion into Soulages’s creative evolution.

Open daily, it includes evening openings for extended visits and events such as lectures on postwar abstraction.

The generous duration encourages repeat visits to experience the seasonal shifts in the light reflected by the artworks.​

Opening Hours

Open every day from 10:30 AM to 7 PM (late opening on Mondays until 10 PM, last entry 30 minutes before closing), closed on December 25, and closing early at 6 PM on December 24 and 31, the exhibition offers flexibility for reflective discovery.

Self-guided visits last about one hour, with audio guides available in French and English for enriched understanding.

These extended hours, especially Monday evenings, accommodate urban rhythms while fostering a calm, immersive atmosphere.​

Location and Access

Located at Musée du Luxembourg, 19 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris.

Set in the Latin Quarter, the museum is accessible by metro (lines 4 and 10, Odéon station) or RER B (Luxembourg station).

This historic setting in the Sénat Garden, nestled between the Panthéon and the Seine, enhances the poetry of Soulages’s paper works, blending artistic intimacy with classical elegance.​

Pricing and Accessibility

Admission is €14 full price (€10 reduced for students, seniors, and youth aged 16–25); free for under 16s, low-income beneficiaries, and under 26s with reservation (limited); a youth offer for two people aged 16–25 at €10 each from Monday to Friday after 4 PM.

Online booking is recommended, with accommodations for disabilities and multilingual support ensuring full inclusion.

This balanced pricing makes Soulages’s abstraction accessible to a wide audience, offering a luminous experience open to all.​

Artistic Context

Born in 1919 in Rodez, Pierre Soulages (1919–2022) was a pioneer of postwar lyrical abstraction who began working on paper in 1946 for economic and immediacy reasons. He used walnut stain for its transparent contrasts that make light emerge from black, as seen in his early works sold in 1948.

Alongside his monumental canvases and the *Outrenoir* series (from 1979 onward), this intimate practice—comprising nearly 800 pieces—served as an independent laboratory exploring charcoal, ink, and gouache for raw expressiveness. Influenced by exhibitions like “Französische Abstrakte Malerei” in 1948, these works have been included in major retrospectives at MoMA and the Centre Pompidou.

Produced by the Grand Palais Rmn in partnership with the Soulages Museum, this exhibition reveals a formal coherence where humble, free paper embodies Soulages’s eternal quest for light, establishing him as a master of emerging clarity, distinct from the rigid geometries of his contemporaries.