Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Michel-Ange Rodin. Living Bodies

Louvre

15 April - 20 July 2026

The more than 200 works brought together by the exhibition highlight the issues of form and concept that drove the same ambition in both artists: to make manifest the body's inner energy. The body is thus revealed as the membrane that envelops the soul, a living thing weathering time and movement. We also explore the historic uses of motion in sculpture: how did the reinvention of antiquity and the ways bodies were used foreshadow the divisions of the 20^thcentury?

Calling attention to the connections, borrowings and reinterpretations to be found in the works of Michelangelo and Rodin, the exhibition gives a close reading of the myths surrounding these two masters and proposes a new perspective on sculpture not as the making of forms, but as a laboratory for breaking new artistic ground. The works of the two masters are echoed by Mannerist pieces after Michelangelo (by Vincenzo Danti, Vincenzo de Rossi and Pierino da Vinci) as well as powerful contemporary works by Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Giuseppe Penone and Jana Sterbak, all of which show how this legacy remains as relevant as ever.

Bringing together pieces from the collections of the Louvre and the Musée Rodin and generously supplemented by loans from major international institutions, the exhibition associates marble, bronze, plaster, terracotta and cast works with a rich pictorial production. It winds through five major themes to present both artists, their inspiration, their use of materials and their favourite subjects, following the common threads of the expression of life and the representation of bodies.
This central theme is established from the start of the visit, which features five iconic sculptures – two masterpieces from the Louvre's collection, Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave, and Auguste Rodin's Age of Bronze, Adam and Nude study of Jean d'Aire (from the Monument to the Burghers of Calais). Welcoming visitors into the exhibition, these bodies are animated with a powerful vital energy.

Two Legendary Artists
The first section presents the myths around the two sculptors. Their place in the art world is evidenced through posthumous portraits and productions, artistic homages and even relics. A selection of pieces inspired by their body of work demonstrates their respective artistic lineages – and shows Rodin's own debt to Michelangelo. The importance of the example Michelangelo set for Rodin is also put in the perspective of his formative journey to Florence in 1876, where he discovered the Chapel of Princes in the basilica of San Lorenzo, a total work of art by the 'magician' who lent him 'a little of his secrets', as he wrote to his companion Rose Beuret. Vincenzo Danti's Renaissance-era casts of the Allegories of Time from the Tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici bring into the exhibition these figures that are characteristic of Michelangelo's art.

Nature and Antiquity: Reinventing the Model
Nature and antiquity were the principal sources of inspiration for Michelangelo and Rodin – but, as we shall see, models are meant to be surpassed. This section features numerous sketches and studies that demonstrate a careful observation of human bodies and a sophisticated understanding of anatomy, which Michelangelo acquired through the practice of dissection, and Rodin through long hours spent studying live models. But the final figures they created went further than naturalistic representations, reconstructing anatomies to produce (in the case of Michelangelo) idealised bodies that would come to replace nature as a model for an entire generation of artists, and (in the case of Rodin) forms intended to be truer than life. Both artists greatly admired classical art and studied it in depth – Rodin was a lifelong collector of ancient pieces. They contended with this towering model and attempted to rival it.
For Giorgio Vasari, this contending was the reason for Michelangelo's very existence. At the heart of this section, we explore the rise of the torso as an artistic form: Michelangelo is thought to have refused to restore the Belvedere Torso, in recognition of its aesthetic integrity; for his part, Rodin was the first artist to design artworks consisting of only a torso, inaugurating one of the principal subjects of modern sculpture.

Non finito
Non finito is central to the exhibition's argument. This aesthetic, which characterised the works of Michelangelo and was harnessed by Rodin, consists in leaving evidence of the marks of artistic creation, as proof that the perceptible sculpture is only one step in an existing intangible form; in this, it uses the transient to make manifest the life that flows through bodies. On exceptional loan from the Casa Buonarotti, a small wooden crucifix illustrates the full power of Michelangelo's non finito, in close proximity with the Louvre's Slaves. This creative power over matter is condensed in the Hand of God: Rodin depicts in marble the divine hand modelling the bodies of Adam and Eve out of clay. Giuseppe Penone's Albero de 7 metri reveals the contemporary staying power of the non finito.
A selection of Michelangelo and Rodin's drawings in red chalk and stump illustrate how they used vibrating lines to suggest bodies in movement, echoing in two dimensions the surface effects produced by non finito in sculpture. Catching the light, this effect creates a soft halo around the marble, like a sfumato anchoring the artwork in its environment.

Bodies and Souls
Michelangelo and Rodin, in making the body the central subject of their artworks, showed that they both perceived it as animated by an intense inner life. Their figures were vessels for thought and dream, sometimes even in death. In Michelangelo's Saint Bartholomew, as in Rodin's Balzac, psyche leaves its mark on the body, as the soul takes form in the mortal coil. These works are powerfully paralleled in two contemporary works: Joseph Beuys's The Skin and Jana Sterbak's Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic. Anatomies and faces, postures and group compositions are all ways of expressing human passions and emotions, which permeate Michelangelo's Last Judgement and Rodin's Gates of Hell. These works are presented respectively through a Renaissance-era copy and a model. The Michelangelo-inspired sculptor Vincenzo Danti's great bronze relief, The Bronze Serpent, serves as another example of such artwork.

Energy and Life
The bodies that Michelangelo and Rodin created are alive because they are full of energy. This concept stands at the heart of the artists' sculptural concerns and makes up the thrust of the exhibition's last section. The flexibility of the figures imbues them with intense vitality, as demonstrated by the many serpentine figures in Michelangelo's drawings as well as Pierino da Vinci's Young River God in marble and Rodin's Inner Voice. The power of human figures appears in full bloom: Michelangelo's terribilità, represented by a cast of his Moses from the Paris École des Beaux-Arts collection, is paralleled by the magnetic presence of Rodin's Balzac. Though they are still, a radiance emanates from these powerful bodies. In other pieces, the two sculptors also used the positioning of bodies in space to the same effect. Vital energy is thus conveyed through the well orchestrated interplay of balance and imbalance, an incarnation of instability. This search for sculptural effect is echoed in the modern day by Bruce Nauman's video work Walking a Line, which comes at the end of the exhibition. Visitors are then invited to the rotunda for one last contemplation of the five sculptures which also marked the start of their visit: five bodies, nude and muscular, emotive and powerful – and, above all, alive.

EXHIBITION CURATORS
Chloé Ariot, Curator, Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand, Curator, Department of Sculptures, Musée du Louvre.

This exhibition is sponsored by Bank of America, main sponsor, as well as Kinoshita Group and the Fondation Placoplatre.

PUBLICATIONS
Catalogue
Michel-Ange Rodin. Corps vivants.
Edited by Chloé Ariot, Curator, Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand, Curator, Department of Sculptures, musée du Louvre.
Co-published by the Musée du Louvre and GALLIMARD. . French, 384 pages, 310 illustrations, hardcover, 21 × 28.5 cm. Price :49 €.

Exhibition booklet.
Michel-Ange Rodin. Corps vivants.
Edited by Chloé Ariot, Curator, Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand, Curator, Department of Sculptures, Musée du Louvre.
Co-published by the Musée du Louvre and GALLIMARD. French, 64 pages, 40 illustrations, hardcover, 12 × 17 cm. Price:11,50 €.

Graphic novel
Sculpter l'éternité by Xavier Coste
Co-published by the Musée du Louvre and Rue de Sèvres. French, 208 pages, hardcover, 25 × 28 cm. Price : 26 €.

IMAGES

Michel-Ange Rodin.
Living Bodies

15 April - 20 july 2026

Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), two unrivalled masters of Western sculpture, engage in a dialogue across the centuries. Their works, emblematic of the strength of the body and the depth of the soul, are here brought together for the first time, revealing a continuum between the two artists, marked by clear divisions.
The more than 200 works brought together by the exhibition highlight the issues of form and concept that drove the same ambition in both artists: to make manifest the body's inner energy. The body is thus revealed as the membrane that envelops the soul, a living thing weathering time and movement. We also explore the historic uses of motion in sculpture: how did the reinvention of antiquity and the ways bodies were used foreshadow the divisions of the 20^thcentury?
Calling attention to the connections, borrowings and reinterpretations to be found in the works of Michelangelo and Rodin, the exhibition gives a close reading of the myths surrounding these two masters and proposes a new perspective on sculpture not as the making of forms, but as a laboratory for breaking new artistic ground. The works of the two masters are echoed by Mannerist pieces after Michelangelo (by Vincenzo Danti, Vincenzo de Rossi and Pierino da Vinci) as well as powerful contemporary works by Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Giuseppe Penone and Jana Sterbak, all of which show how this legacy remains as relevant as ever.

EXHIBITION CURATORS
Chloé Ariot, Curator, Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand, Curator, Department of Sculptures, Musée du Louvre.

This exhibition is sponsored by Bank of America, main sponsor, as well as Kinoshita Group and the Fondation Placoplatre.

Graphic novel
Sculpter l'éternité by Xavier Coste
Co-published by the Musée du Louvre and Rue de Sèvres. French, 208 pages, hardcover, 25 × 28 cm. Price : 26 €.

1_Michelangelo Buonarroti, dit Michel-Ange. L’esclave mourant (face). Musée du Louvre © 2022 Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn Hervé Lewandowski_FACE-jpg

2b_Michelangelo Buonarroti, dit Michel-Ange. L’esclave rebelle (profil2). Musée du Louvre © 2022 Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn Hervé Lewandowski_TQD-jpg

2c_Michelangelo Buonarroti, dit Michel-Ange. L’esclave rebelle (face). Musée du Louvre © 2022 Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn Hervé Lewandowski_Profil.-jpg

3_Auguste RODIN. L’âge d’airain (face). musée Rodin © musée Rodin photo Christian Baraja-jpg

3b_Auguste RODIN. L’âge d’airain (face). musée Rodin © musée Rodin - photo Christian Baraja_H-jpg

3c_Auguste RODIN. L’âge d’airain (detail). musée Rodin © musée Rodin. photo Christian Baraja_H-jpg

4b_Auguste RODIN. Adam. musée Rodin © musée Rodin photo Christian Baraja-jpg

5. Paul Cruet_Dir de Léonce Bénédite. Moulage de la main d’Auguste Rodin tenant un torse féminin. 1917. Paris, musée Rodin.© musée Rodin photo Christian Baraja-jpg

6. Daniele da Volterra. Buste de Michel-Ange. Vers 1564-1566 © 2019 Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn Hervé Lewandowski-jpg

7. Auguste Rodin. L’Homme au nez cassé. 1864. 1875. Paris, musée Rodin © musée Rodin photo Christian Baraja-jpg

8. Michel-Ange, Adam et Ève chassés du jardin d’Éden, d’après Masaccio. Vers 1504. Musée du Louvre © GrandPalaisRmn_musée du Louvre. Michel Urtado-jpg

9. Anonyme (16e siècle), Ecorché, dit de Michel-Ange. Moulage réalisé au 19e_Beaux Arts de Paris © Beaux Arts de Paris, dist. GrandPalaisRmn image Beaux-jpg

10. Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi, d’après un modèle d’Albert Ernest Carrier Belleuse © musée Rodin - photo Christian Baraja-jpg

11. Michel-Ange. Tête de femme idéale de profil à gauche, vers 1525-1528 Londres, British Museum © Trustees of the British Museum-jpg

12. Auguste Rodin. Bellone. 1879. Terre cuite retravaillée au plâtre, patinée couleur terre cuite. Paris, musée Rodin © agence photographique du musée Rodin - Jérome Manoukian-jpg

13. Michel-Ange. Homme nu, vu de face. Vers 1501-1504. Paris, musée du Louvre © Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn Suzanne Nagy-jpg

14. Auguste Rodin. Torse de l’étude pour Saint Jean-Baptiste. Vers 1887. Bronze. Paris, Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris © Paris Musée-jpg

15.Michel-Ange. Tête d’un faune, de profil vers la gauche. Vers 1523 © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre) Michel Urtado-jpg

16. Auguste Rodin. La main de Dieu. Vers 1896-1898. Marbre. Pratique par Séraphin Soudbinine, après 1916. Paris, musée Rodin © musée Rodin_photo Christian Baraja-jpg

17. Michelangelo Buonarroti, dit Michel-Ange. Le Christ en croix. Vers 1562 – 1563. Florence Casa Buonarroti © Casa Buonarroti-jpg

22. Daniele da Volterra Saint Barthélémy tenant sa dépouille, accompagné d’un autre saint, d’après Michel-Ange © Beaux-Arts de Paris_GrandPalaisRmn_imBeauxArts-jpg

23. Michel-Ange. Deux hommes nus en portant un troisième debout. Vers 1504. Paris, musée du Louvre © 2013 Musée du Louvre, dist. GrandPalaisRmn. Suzanne Nagy-jpg

International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dream

Frist Art Museum

May 22 through August 30, 2026

The Frist Art Museum presents International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams, an exhibition that investigates the global appeal of surrealism and how it has widely influenced culture and society over the last century through the work of artists including Eileen Agar, Louise Bourgeois, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, and Dorothea Tanning. Organized in collaboration with Tate, the exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Ingram Galleries from May 22 through August 30, 2026.

Drawn from the Tate collection, UK, the exhibition of approximately 125 works focuses on the long trajectory and broad reach of surrealism as a state of mind through a captivating selection of film, paintings, photographs, sculpture, and other art objects, as well as publications and archival material. “One of the great attractions of surrealism was its internationalism,” writes Matthew Gale, exhibition curator and former Tate senior curator at large. “In an era of violent nationalism, the recognition of a global association of like-minded creators was a lifeline, at different times connecting artists and writers in New York and Santiago de Chile, Paris and Prague, Mexico City, and Tokyo.”

International Surrealism from Tate: Fifty Years of Dreams is presented just over a century after the first exhibition of surrealism, in Paris in November 1925, following the publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto and Louis Aragon’s A Wave of Dreams a year earlier. Featuring the aforementioned celebrated artists, the exhibition also includes many from around the world deserving of further consideration such as Kati Horna, Malangatana Ngwenya, Shiihara Osamu, and Lionel Wendt.

The surrealists were inspired by the theories of Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who proposed the existence of the unconscious, a part of the mind containing emotions and impulses that are censored by the conscious mind. Breton’s philosophy of surrealism, though initially attracting writers and poets, was soon adopted by visual artists. “Surrealists embraced the unknown and mysterious, depicted and interpreted dreams, found inspiration in nature and unexpected aspects of the everyday, and explored the ‘mad love’ of unleashed passions,” writes Gale.

Along with their pursuits of personal freedom and the liberation of the mind, the surrealists also allied themselves with leftist politics in opposition to growing totalitarianism in Europe between the world wars. “They rejected authoritarianism, colonialism with its repression and exploitation, and the inequalities embedded in capitalism,” Gale explains. “With its dual focus on individual freedom and social and political change, surrealism attracted many artists, writers, and intellectuals worldwide for decades after its initial appearance.” International Surrealism from Tate gathers artworks from a range of centers and periods, highlighting the multiplicity of surrealist practices represented in the Tate’s collection.

As surrealism was made up of individual responses rather than a specific style, key themes that united various surrealist practices anchor the exhibition’s six loose, transhistorical sections. Works in “Automatism: Angel Images” exemplify attempts to produce works “automatically”—free from conscious control and self-censorship. Artists associated with or interested in surrealism, like Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Jackson Pollock, and Judit Reigl, developed their own automatic processes, such as improvised drawing, gestural brushwork, dripping, spilling, or scraping paint across rough surfaces to stimulate new images or reveal hidden forms that emerged from chance marks.

Sigmund Freud’s theories about the influence of repressed desires permeated surrealist practices, and the section “Dreams: The Reckless Sleeper” explores how artists such as Leonora Carrington and Paul Nash were interested in the unrestrained creativity of the unconscious mind. “For surrealist painters, the unconscious generated images that were familiar but refracted: people who were at once identifiable but unrecognizable, spaces charged with emotion, actions loaded with meaning,” notes Gale. René Magritte, for example, placed familiar imagery in an irrational context to expose repressed fears and desires hidden in the unconscious mind. 

“Desires: Sleeping Venus” explores the surrealists’ focus on love and sexual freedom. Often, surrealist works, such as that by Paul Delvaux, reflect heterosexual men’s desires and objectify women. “This led to unequal treatment of women among so many revolutionary men, and maintained an ingrained convention unrecognized as a blind spot at the time,” writes Gale. However, many women also challenged the dominance of the male gaze. This section features works by Ithell Colquhoun, Leonor Fini, and Dorothea Tanning, who became known for emphasizing women’s desires. Artists like Claude Cahun, whose work is also included in this exhibition, explored gender fluidity, enriching the surrealist conversation on liberation with a gender-nonconforming perspective.

For many surrealists, nature was stimulating in both its destruction and abundance. Artists like Eileen Agar and Yves Tanguy explored the natural world’s forces of proliferation and decay, as can be seen in “Uncanny Nature: The Invisibles.” Agar’s photographs of rock formations in Brittany, France, suggest animal, human, and more mysterious forms depending upon her camera angle; Tanguy’s The Invisibles depicts partly mechanical, partly organic structures that appear like skyscrapers against a threatening sky.

“Objects: The Future of Statues” includes provocative “surrealist objects” by artists including Louise Bourgeois, Marcel Duchamp, and Marcel Mariën, who combined disparate, everyday elements to affirm the power of imagination. Some of these objects resemble three-dimensional sculptures but evade classification, serving no rational function except to unsettle and provoke. “In the 1930s, Salvador Dalí sparked a wave of object production by proposing the ‘symbolically functioning object,’” writes Gale. “As a result, a wide range of surrealists contributed to the . . . Surrealist Exhibition of Objects. . . . Many of the objects exhibited arose spontaneously but attracted elaborate interpretation. Temporary in nature, some survive only in photographic evidence.”

Works in the section titled “Politics: Public Thirst” focus on social and political liberty as essential for personal and creative freedom. The surrealist movement generally opposed inequality, repression, and colonialism, and exhibited artists such as Wifredo Lam, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Merlyn Evans engaged with the struggle against fascism as well as the complex tension between intellectual freedom and political ideology.

Paul Nash. Landscape from a Dream, 1936-8. Oil on canvas; 26 3/4 x 40 in. Tate, Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1946. Photo: Tate

An abstract statue of a woman reclining.

Henry Moore. Reclining Figure, 1939. Lead on oak base; 6 x 11 x 4 in. Tate, Transferred from the Victoria & Albert Museum 1983. © The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2026 / www.henry-moore.org. Photo: © Tate

The statue of a head that is a blue sky with white clouds.

A surreal painting of figures and objects melting.

A surrealist painting of a green abstract human with sharp teeth.

Enrico Baj. Fire! Fire!, 1963–64. Oil and Meccano on furnishing fabric; 50 5/8 x 38 1/4 in. Tate, Presented by Avvocato Paride Accetti 1973. Archivio Enrico Baj, Vergiate, Varese, Italy. © Enrico Baj. Photo: Tate

Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

May 20 through September 13, 2026

In May 2026, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will host the U.S. debut of a selection of modern masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and other figures of the postwar European avant-garde, assembled by the famed gallerist and collector Heinz Berggruen. The exhibition explores Berggruen’s relationship with the artists, literary community, and art-market network to which he was intimately connected in postwar Paris, through his Berggruen & Cie gallery on Rue de l’Université. Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen will be on view at the MFAH May 20 through September 13, 2026.

“I am honored to bring to the U.S. and to Houston these exceptional masterworks from the collection of the Museum Berggruen in Berlin,” comments Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “It is especially rewarding to introduce our audiences to the life and legacy of Heinz Berggruen—a pioneering art dealer, publisher, and collector whom I was privileged to know and work with for more than two decades. His exhibitions on the rue de l’Université were a must for every art collector visiting Paris, and his museum in Berlin has become a pilgrimage point for connoisseurs.”

“This exhibition is a chance to discover some less-familiar works by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, reflecting the personal taste of a discerning collector,” notes Ann Dumas, consulting curator of European art at the MFAH. Dena Woodall, the museum’s curator of prints and drawings, adds, “The exhibition blends both a monographic and theme-based focus; it is the first time the museum is showing the work of Paul Klee in such depth—from his mysterious, lyrical drawings to his studies of color and form, stemming from his time as a teacher at the Bauhaus.”

About the Exhibition
Between the 1940s and the 1990s, Heinz Berggruen assembled a singular collection of hundreds of modern masterworks, many of them directly from the artists. As a dealer, he became his own best client, forming his collection guided by his particular tastes and affinities. Picasso–Klee–Matisse: Masterpieces from the Museum Berggruen presents more than 95 of the works—paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sculptures—that Berggruen collected. The MFAH exhibition combines thematic areas of focus, including still life, portraits, the human figure, and landscapes, with in-depth presentations devoted to individual artists, highlighting the entire careers of Picasso and Klee and showcasing Matisse’s signature cut-outs, Giacometti’s haunting, elongated sculptures and paintings and drawings by Paul Cézanne and Georges Braque.

A gallery of the exhibition will be devoted to the story of Heinz Berggruen (1914–2007). Born into a Jewish family in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Germany, Berggruen studied literature at university and, in the 1930s, began to write on culture for German newspapers. In 1936 he fled Nazi persecution; emigrating to the United States, he initially worked in California as a freelance arts journalist before securing a curatorial post in 1939 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. After World War II, Berggruen returned to Europe, and in 1947 founded his gallery in Paris, representing many of the artists whose works he began to collect privately. In 1980 he retired from his gallery and concentrated on expanding his own collection. In 2000, Berggruen placed the collection with the German state; it is now housed in the Museum Berggruen in Berlin-Charlottenburg as part of the Berlin State Museums/Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage. The Museum Berggruen is currently closed for renovation and its collection is touring internationally.

Organization and Funding

This exhibition is organized by the Museum Berggruen–Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

IMAGES

Pablo Picasso, The Yellow Sweater, 1939, oil on canvas, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie - Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. © 2026 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Paul Klee, Sealed Lady, 1930, pen and watercolor on paper on paperboard, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie - Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

Henri Matisse, Vegetal Elements, 1947, gouache cut-out on paper mounted on canvas, Museum Berggruen, Neue Nationalgalerie - Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin.

Martin Schongauer The Beautiful Immortal

Louvre

8 April - 20 July 2026

Martin Schongauer, La Vierge au buisson de roses © Région Grand Est – Inventaire général, Bastien Garnier (detail)

Nicknamed 'Beautiful Martin' by Albrecht Dürer, Martin Schongauer (Colmar, about 1445–Alt-Breisach, 1491) was a prodigious painter, draughtsman and engraver who remains relatively unknown outside of a small circle of experts and enthusiasts. He was, however, one of the most popular artists of the late Middle Ages – and one of the major figures of this period.
The exhibition brings together a hundred-some pieces to highlight Schongauer's body of work and his legacy beyond borders and time. It presents a few of his rare drawings, a wide selection of the engravings that made him famous throughout Europe and, for the first time, a near-complete collection of the paintings (altarpieces and easel paintings) thought to be by his hand, including the exceptional 1473 Madonna of the Rose Bower, his only painting on panel whose date of creation is known.
The exhibition is structured in two major chapters, the first retracing Martin Schongauer's life and career, and the second exploring the magnitude of the impact of his engravings on European visual culture.

A shortage of sources means that we still know relatively little about his life. The son and brother of Colmar goldsmiths, he quickly came to master delicate burin work in his engravings, demonstrating his sharp precision and clear understanding of depth and surpassing his predecessor, the Master ES. His early works are testament to his knowledge of the great painters of the Southern Netherlands, such as Rogier van der Weyden, but also of the artists of Nuremberg – where he likely stayed as part of a journey that lasted from about 1465 to 1470.

A rare few paintings by Schongauer have survived to the modern day. They reveal his sense of aesthetics, both in his human representations and in his treatment of décor and background, as well as his taste for ornamental work and naturalism. His small painted panels exemplify his time's new, more intimate view of the relationship between the Virgin and Child, the serenity of adoration scenes and the importance of Mary's role. The exhibition presents these smaller works, designed for private devotion, alongside Schongauer's large-format pieces, commissioned by religious institutions – held by Colmar churches and the commandery in Isenheim, these have until today mostly remained in Alsace.

Yet his engravings, above all, represent the pinnacle of his captivating style. In these works, his immense technical skill combines with his extensive knowledge of apocryphal texts and commentaries on the lives of the saints. They reveal a well-read artist with a penchant for fine, inventive storytelling and a skilful eye for nature. His diverse choice of subjects allowed him to reach a wide customer base. He worked animal and fantastical themes, as well as decorative elements, into his religious scenes.

The second part of the exhibition shows Schongauer's longevity through time and space. The art of Schongauer – particularly his engravings – continued to fascinate artists long after his passing. Many drawings, paintings, engravings, printed works, sculptures and objets d'art produced from the late 15th to the 17th century, from Spain to France, Bohemia and Italy, by artists both renowned and anonymous, were inspired by the creations of this illustrious printmaker – whether faithful to their source or taking various liberties. A selection has been made from an assortment of more than a thousand works to illustrate this sprawling iconographic spread that reached far beyond the bounds of the Holy Roman Empire. It is this incredible staying power that has granted Schongauer the title of 'immortal'.

Exhibition Curators : Pantxika Béguerie De Paepe, Honorary Curator of the Musée Unterlinden, and Hélène Grollemund, Collection Manager, Department of Prints and Drawings, Musée du Louvre.

Catalogue: Edited by Pantxika Béguerie De Paepe, Aude Briau and Hélène Grollemund
Co-published by: Musée du Louvre / Skira. French, 224 pages, 140 illustrations, €39.

IMAGES

Martin Schongauer, La Vierge au buisson de roses © Région Grand Est – Inventaire général, Bastien Garnier

Martin Schongauer, Vierge folle en buste © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre), Tony Querrec

15. Federico Zuchi, Composition consacrée à la Sainte Croix © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre), Philippe Fuzeau-jpg

Federico Zuchi, Composition consacrée à la Sainte Croix © GrandPalaisRmn (musée du Louvre), Philippe Fuzeau

Monday, May 25, 2026

Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection Sotheby's London in June

This summer in London, Sotheby’s will stage a landmark exhibition and sale of masterpieces from the renowned Lewis Collection. Estimated in excess of £150m / $200m, this will be the most valuable single collection ever offered in London, bringing together some of the greatest achievements in modern figurative painting. Select highlights from the collection will be unveiled to the public at Sotheby’s headquarters in New York’s historic Breuer Building on 2 May, ahead of exhibition and sale in London in June.

Highlights on view in New York will include Gustav Klimt’s ethereal full-length society portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi) from 1902 (est. £20–£30m); Egon Schiele’s audacious early masterpiece Danaë, in which all of the artist’s nascent talent is crystalised (est. £12–18m); a major painting by Amedeo Modigliani – Homme à la pipe (Le notaire de Nice) – unseen for almost half a century (est. £12–18m), and Francis Bacon’s stark double self-portrait from 1977 (est. £8-12m), infused with the melancholia of a life blighted by tragedy.

GUSTAV KLIMT (1862–1918) Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi) 1902 oil on canvas Estimate: £20–30 million ($27–40m)

Detail

GUSTAV KLIMT (1862–1918) Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi) 1902 oil on canvas Estimate: £20–30 million ($27–40m)

On its first showing at the Wiener Secession’s Klimt exhibition in 1903, the great Viennese art critic, Ludwig von Hevesi, described Bildnis Gertrud Loew as ‘the most sweet-scented poetry the palette is able to create.’ Today, the allure of Klimt’s full-length society portraits remains undimmed. With the majority held in major museum collections, these coveted works seldom appear on the market. In the last quarter century, only five major portraits by the artist – including this work – have sold at auction, each one of which has exceeded its top estimate, often by multiple factors.* Further to being acquired by the Lewises, this painting has for years hung alongside other masterpieces by Klimt at New York’s famed Neue Galerie.

This captivating 1902 portrait depicts the ethereal figure of 19-yearold Gertrud Loew – a member of fin-de-siècle Viennese society, later known by her married name Gertha Felsőványi – wreathed in diaphanous folds of gossamer fabric. Commissioned by Gertrud’s father Dr Anton Loew, at the time one of the most celebrated physicians in Vienna, the painting was widely exhibited – to much acclaim – during the artist’s lifetime, both in Austria and Germany.

When the Nazis arrived in Vienna, Gertrud came under increasing pressure due to her Jewish ancestry, and in early 1939 reluctantly agreed to leave the city for exile in the United States, leaving the entire Felsöványi art collection behind. When Gertrud’s daughter, Maria, returned to Vienna after the war to reclaim her family’s property she discovered that it had all been sold, also under duress, by her mother’s friend. Initially untraceable by the Felsöványi family, Bildnis Gertrud Loew had in fact been acquired by Gustav Klimt’s son Gustav Ucicky, whose widow, Ursula, established the Klimt Foundation in Vienna in 2013. Thanks to her research, the full provenance and history of the work was unearthed, and the portrait was subsequently sold following a settlement between the Felsöványi heirs and the Klimt Foundation.

*In November 2025, another of Klimt’s celebrated portraits, Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) (1914-16), sold for $236.4m at Sotheby’s New York, the second-highest price ever achieved for a work of art at auction. Similarly, in 2023, Sotheby’s London presented for sale Klimt’s Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan), which exceeded its estimate of £65m ($80m), selling for £85.3m ($108.4m), becoming the most valuable artwork – of any kind – ever sold in Europe.

EGON SCHIELE (1890–1918) Danaë 1909 oil on canvas Estimate: £12–18 million ($16–24m

Among the most important paintings by Egon Schiele ever to come to market and recently exhibited at the Neue Galerie in New York, Danaë is widely regarded as a key breakthrough work. Daring and strikingly modern, and painted when the artist was just nineteen, the painting marks the first full expression of Schiele’s extraordinary vision, heralding the revolutionary aesthetic he would develop over the next decade, until his untimely death at the age of 28.

The work’s jewel-like surface, stylised execution and geometric patterning reflect the opulence of the Jugenstil movement – which was at its peak at the time – while the daring composition pays homage to Schiele’s mentor, Gustav Klimt, who championed the young artist throughout his career and whose influence is evident in the ornamental richness and flattened planes in this painting.

Here Schiele imagines the mythological scene in which Zeus descends on Danaë in a shower of golden rain, its heaviness accentuated by the introduction of greens and blacks. Schiele’s extraordinary talent as a draughtsman is already fully evident in the sureness of line – especially around Danaë’s hand, shoulders and right arm – the preciseness of which contrasts sharply with the delicate washes that illuminate her face.

AMEDEO MODIGLIANI (1884–1920) Homme à la pipe (Le Notaire de Nice) 1918 oil on canvas Estimate: £12–18 million ($16–24m)

Unseen for nearly half a century, Homme à la pipe (Le notaire de Nice) ranks among the crowning achievements of Amedeo Modigliani’s late career. By the time he painted L’Homme à la pipe, Modigliani was in the final, and arguably finest, phase of his short life. In 1918, he and his companion Jeanne Hébuterne relocated to Nice, where his dealer Léopold Zborowski hoped the warmer climate might restore his failing health. The Mediterranean light softened his palette, though his compositional authority remained undiminished. Lacking his usual Montparnasse coterie, Modigliani turned to the locals – workers, farmers, apprentices – as his models, finding in their unadorned dignity a subject perfectly suited to his art.

For L’Homme à la pipe, he chose a mature man known as the Notary of Nice. The sitter wears a dark suit and black cap, his left hand raised to hold a pipe, his face rendered in Modigliani’s signature manner — long and stylised, with almond-shaped eyes that seem to look inward rather than outward. Behind him, warm tones of orange and beige evoke the light of the Côte d’Azur, their softness thrown into quiet relief by the dark mass of the figure. L’Homme à la pipe belongs to that last luminous burst of work – when his style was fully formed, his hand was sure, and his life was coming close to an end.

FRANCIS BACON (1909–1992) Two Studies for Self-Portrait 1977 oil on canvas Estimate: £8–12 million ($11–16m)

Francis Bacon’s self-portraits are widely viewed as the most revealing and ruthless of the artist’s works, prepared as he was to paint himself with a ferocity he rarely directed at others. Executed in 1977 at the height of his international acclaim, Two Studies for Self-Portrait captures an artist beset by inner turmoil. Following the suicide of his love George Dyer in 1971 – on the eve of his retrospective opening at the Grand Palais – Bacon launched into a period of production that would become the most emotionally fraught but ambitious of his career. Behind these works lies a decade of guilt, bereavement, and self-scrutiny, marked by the deaths of many of those closest to him – not only George Dyer, but also Peter Lacey. When asked in 1979 why he made so many self-portraits, Bacon explained: “people have been dying around me like flies and I’ve had nobody else to paint but myself.”

In these haunting, life-scale images, Bacon appears as a double death mask: pink and purple apparitions dissolving into encroaching darkness, mouths mangled, eyes sealed shut. Intriguingly, the left panel seems to echo the Self-Portrait with Injured Eye from 1972, in which Bacon’s battered eye socket is portrayed as brutally purple and swollen. (A similar work from The Lewis Collection, Francis Bacon’s searing 1972 Self-Portrait, sold in London in March 2026 for double its low estimate at £16m / $21.5m.) Exhibited widely across Europe and Asia during Bacon’s lifetime, this double-portrait – one of only a handful of self-portraits in this format – stands as one of the most powerful and intimate expressions of the artist’s late career.

GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE (1848–1894) Portrait de Paul Hugot 1879 oil on canvas Estimate: £3.5–4.5 million ($5–6m)

Within his celebrated oeuvre, it is the paintings featuring the human figure which capture most vividly Caillebotte’s unique – and at the times audacious – treatment of space, light and composition. In the last quarter century, only half a dozen major works of this kind have come to auction, making the appearance of this work – unseen on the market for over thirty years – a rare opportunity to see and acquire a work of such significance.

This monumental portrait of Caillebotte’s close friend, neighbour and patron Paul Hugot was a daringly ‘modern’ submission to the Fifth Impressionist Exhibition in 1880. Described by Armand Silvestre, a leading critic of the time, as ‘by far [Caillebotte’s] best piece’, the painting captures the unique synthesis of intimacy and rigour that is the hallmark of Caillebotte’s unique style, and which makes this one of the most celebrated male portraits of the Impressionist era.

Caillebotte’s financial status allowed him an artistic freedom not afforded to other members of the Impressionist group: unfettered by monetary need, he developed his own, unique, pictorial language – one in which an acute awareness of light and shadow blends with a meticulous eye for composition, gesture, proportion and character. Here every detail in this painting is brilliantly observed – from Hugot’s crisp waistcoat and top hat, to the letter, indicating erudition, tucked into his pocket. Hugot was a key supporter of Caillebotte’s work, amassing one of the largest collections of the artist’s works ever formed. In this magnificent portrait, Caillebotte pays full homage to the importance of a figure so central to both his professional and personal life. Portrait de Paul Hugot was exhibited at the recent Musée d’Orsay retrospective devoted to the artist.

LUCIAN FREUD (1922–2011) Woman in a Grey Sweater 1987-88 oil on canvas Estimate: £3–4 million ($4–5.5m)

Lucian Freud is widely regarded as one of the most significant figurative painters of the 20th century, painting the human figure with an unflinching, almost forensic intensity. In the manner so typical of his greatest works, the artist’s characteristic intensity of observation is here combined with immense intimacy to extraordinarily powerful effect.

Painted over several months in 1987 and 1988, Woman in a Grey Sweater is an intimate portrait of Susanna Chancellor. Susanna was just nineteen when she first met Freud, but they remained lifelong friends – Susanna acting as loyal confidante and muse, and – in later years – becoming one of the artist’s most significant models, his paintings of her characterised by an unparalleled warmth and liveliness.

Woman in a Grey Sweater was acquired from the Saatchi Collection in 1997 and since its execution has been exhibited in museums across the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Britain, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and Museo Nacional de Art Reina Sofia, Madrid.

CHAÏM SOUTINE (1893–1943) Portrait de garçon en bleu Circa 1928 oil on canvas Estimate: £1.8–2.5 million ($2.5–3.5m)

Born into extreme poverty in Belarus, Soutine has been described by art critic Waldemar Januszczak as “a painter of extraordinary invention and subtlety” and “one of art’s finest colourists.” He spent his creative years in Paris, and during the 1920s, alternated between capturing ‘portraits’ and still lifes on canvas. Although the figures he chose to paint – drawn from the working class – remain anonymous, their identities shine through, as in Portrait de garçon en bleu, a depiction of a young boy in his uniform. Soon after it was painted, the work entered into the historic collection of Marcellin & Madeleine Castaing, who were close friends with Soutine through the 1930s, financially supporting him after the death of his dealer in 1932. After his death, Soutine drew the admiration of artists such as Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, whose gestural brushwork can be traced back to Soutine’s remarkably dexterous touch.

Soutine’s reputation as the most squalid artist in history originates in the story of him going to the doctor to complain that his hearing was drastically impaired, only for the doctor to pull a nest of bedbugs from his ear.

PABLO PICASSO (1881–1973) Portrait de Dora Maar (Dora Maar à la coiffe) 1936 brush and ink, wash and pencil on paper Estimate: £600,000–800,000 ($800,000–1.1m)

Picasso met Dora Maar in early 1936 and was immediately enchanted by her beauty and intelligence. Although still married to Olga Khokhlova and involved with Marie-Thérèse Walter, he swiftly began a relationship with the Surrealist photographer. An artist in her own right, who spoke Picasso’s native Spanish, Maar shared his political concerns and became the embodiment of his emotional and intellectual anxieties awakened by the war in Spain and the World War which followed. The drawing was first owned by Maar, remaining in her collection until the sale of her estate in 1998.

Art History News

Tuesday, May 26, 2026