Petit Palais Exhibition Explores Artist Portraits with Focus on Female Perspectives

The Petit Palais in Paris is presenting 'Visages d'artistes. De Gustave Courbet à Annette Messager,' an exhibition examining self-portraiture and artist depictions. Curated with a deliberate emphasis on female artists, thirteen women creators were invited to contribute contemporary viewpoints. Annick Lemoine, the museum's director who is departing to lead the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie, stated the aim is to highlight the vitality of the French art scene. The show marks the beginning of a series of all-female projects at the institution, with upcoming retrospectives dedicated to Eva Gonzalès and a carte blanche for Prune Nourry. The exhibition features over 200 works from the museum's collection, spanning from the 19th century to the present. It opens with Gustave Courbet's 'Autoportrait au chien noir' (1842-1844), his first painting accepted into the official Salon and donated to the museum in 1909. Contemporary pieces include a hyperrealistic resin sculpture by Hélène Delprat, created with Oscar-winning special effects makeup artist Pierre-Olivier Persin. The display is organized into thematic sections exploring artistic groups, studio environments, and homages or irreverent responses to art history. Notable works include group portraits of Impressionists like Monet and Renoir by sculptor Paul Paulin, a painting by Lucien Simon depicting the 'Bande noire' collective, and a 1989 photograph by Cindy Sherman parodying Raphael. A 1896 tinted wax bust of Rembrandt by Stanislas Lami, acquired in 2024, references the museum's strong holdings of the master's work. The exhibition also extends into the permanent collections with site-specific interventions, such as a 2025 painting by Françoise Pétrovitch and a triptych by Apolonia Sokol. The event runs until July 19, 2026, at the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.