Soulages, une autre lumière — Peintures sur papier — Musée du Luxembourg — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 2 months: Wednesday, September 17, 2025

From 17 September 2025 to 11 January 2026

Pierre Soulages always refused to establish a hierarchy among the different techniques he employed. In addition to paintings on canvas, he also produced a substantial number of paintings on paper, continuing to work in this medium — with occasional interruptions on his pictorial journey — until the early 2000s. It can be said that his work on paper began as early as 1946, with paintings with wide and pronounced brushstrokes produced with walnut stain that truly distinguish his work from other abstract approaches of the time.

In 1948, having only recently begun exhibiting, he was invited to take part in a touring exhibition of French abstract painting in German museums in the company of far more senior artists. It was one of his paintings that was chosen for the poster, helping to make him known. Favouring walnut stain in his early years, Pierre Soulages would often return to this material used by cabinetmakers, appreciating its qualities of transparency, opacity, brightness and contrast with the white of paper.

He would also use ink and gouache for works whose generally restricted formats do not compromise on formal power and diversity.

The work on paper by Pierre Soulages, which was long kept by the artist, has been shown less often than the paintings on canvas, and rarely brought together in separate exhibitions. Yet it is an essential part of our understanding of his painting.

This exhibition features 130 works, more than thirty of which have never been shown before.

This exhibition has benefited from exceptional loans from the Musée Soulages, Rodez