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Hilma af Klint, Leonora Carrington & May's Museum Surge | May 2026
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Paris's most compelling May exhibitions arrive together: Hilma af Klint at the Grand Palais and Leonora Carrington at Musée du Luxembourg — two overdue retrospectives rewriting art history. Plus Rousseau, Korean national treasures, and insider tips on beating the crowds.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Two simultaneous retrospectives opening this month are rewriting a long-standing omission in Paris's art history. Hilma af Klint and Leonora Carrington, two of the twentieth century's most consequential artists, are finally getting the full French institutional treatment.
A few streets away in the sixth arrondissement, Musée du Luxembourg is running the first complete French retrospective of Leonora Carrington until July nineteenth. Carrington was a Surrealist who outlived nearly every male peer in that movement and whose work is considerably stranger and more original than the movement's canonical figures.
These two exhibitions aren't the whole story of May. The city's calendar is unusually dense right now.
On the food side, Fouquet's Paris has launched a spring menu through its Le Joy concept, with chef Claudia Rivera Valdez running a seasonal programme on what they describe as a secret terrace inside the hotel. The specifics on reservations and access aren't confirmed, so treat that as worth investigating rather than booking sight unseen.
May's public holidays compound everything. More Parisians and visitors are in the city with free days and no commute.
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