The top exhibitions to catch in France in 2025

From 31 January 2025 to 4 January 2026

The celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of Impressionism continue in 2025 in the heart of Provence with the immersive exhibition ‘Monet: Impression, rising sun’ devoted to one of the masters of this pictorial movement. From Paris train stations to the Normandy coast, by way of the banks of the Seine and his garden at Giverny, the landscapes that inspired Claude Monet flash across the walls of the Carrières des Lumières, the digital art centre in Les Baux-de-Provence. With its monumental projections, you can rediscover some of the artist's greatest masterpieces and the incredible transcription of light in all its variations.

The second digital creation - ‘Le douanier Rousseau, au pays des rêves’ - projected at the Carrières de Lumières is a tribute to the painter Henri Rousseau, a major figure in naive art in France.

Visit the Carrières de Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence 

From 21 February 2025 to 4th of January 2026

In 2025, Les Bassins des Lumières offers a colourful plunge into the heart of ancient Egypt. The temples of Luxor and Abu Simbel, the tombs of Tutankhamen and Nefertari in the Valley of the Kings and Queens, the monumental sculptures of the pharaohs, the pyramids... The façades of the digital art centre in Bordeaux reveal the sumptuous landscapes and architectural treasures of Egyptian civilisation in this new immersive exhibition.

A second immersive exhibition takes visitors on a colourful journey in the footsteps of nineteenth-century Orientalist painters, starting with the works of Delacroix before moving on to the studios of Ingres, Gérôme and Constant. A stroll through narrow streets, patios, souks of Oriental cities, deserts and encounters with wild animals. Art lovers will then enter the harems imagined by Orientalist artists, complete with bathing girls. The visit culminates in a projection of La Grande Odalisque, Ingres' masterpiece.

Visit the Bassins des Lumières in Bordeaux

From 4 April to 31 August 2025

In 2025, the Nantes Museum of Art invites visitors to explore the theoretical and formal links between optical art and video and computer art. This exhibition is being held in partnership with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Works of modern and contemporary art created from the 1960s to the present day will be on display.

Visit the Nantes Museum of Art in the Pays de la Loire region

From 4 April to 2 November 2025

Between 1987 and 1998, artist Olivier Debré created four stage curtains for prestigious cultural venues such as the Théâtre de la Comédie-Française, the Théâtre des Abbesses and the Shanghai Opera House. The exhibition at the Centre de Création Contemporaine in Tours focuses on sketches and aesthetic research, revealing the creative process.

Visit the Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré in Tours, in the Loire Valley

From 26 April to 21 September 2025

True giants of the seas, ocean liners captured the imagination of painters, photographers, poster artists and filmmakers in the first half of the 20th century. Between uprooting, hopes for a better life and unusual encounters, the exhibition presented by the Nantes Museum of Art focuses on the passengers of these floating monuments through a selection of works by avant-garde artists.

Visit the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art in Le Havre, Normandy

From 26 April to 2 November 2025

Optical vibrations, cosmic infinities, experiences of emptiness... the new exhibition to be discovered in 2025 at Villa Carmignac – in the heart of the island of Porquerolles – promises to be dizzying. From Mark Rothko to Yves Klein and Ann Veronica Janssens, some sixty artists will present their vision of vertigo through a selection of abstract works.

Visit Villa Carmignac in Porquerolles, on the French Riviera

From 29 May 2025 to 4 January 2026

Forget the clichés of Asterix: the new exhibition at the Musée de la Romanité in Nîmes reveals a mixed-race Gaul, where Gauls and Romans created a new culture that was neither entirely Celtic nor entirely Roman. Through more than 200 reconstructed frescoes, jewellery, votive sculptures and sacred offerings, immerse yourself in the heart of Gallo-Roman civilisation, where gods, languages and lifestyles intermingled. An interactive and immersive journey invites visitors to decipher these signs of a reconstructed memory that still shapes our landscapes and traditions.

Visit the Musée de la Romanité in Nîmes, Occitanie

From 13 June to 9 November 2025

Sparkling rhinestones, powerful portraits, vibrant patterns... Mickalene Thomas celebrates love and black femininity in a vibrant and engaging exhibition. Paintings, videos and installations interact with the nudes and bourgeois interiors of Matisse and Manet, reinterpreting the dominant narratives of art history. A unique retrospective to be discovered at Les Abattoirs in Toulouse.

Visit Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, Occitanie

From 14 June to 14 September 2025

From Jean-Michel Basquiat to Camille Blatrix, Paolo Costa, Zoe Crosher, Marlene Dumas, Llyn Foulkes and Rochelle Goldberg, several major contemporary artists are being honoured this summer at the Couvent des Jacobins in Rennes. A selection of 90 paintings, sculptures and drawings from the Pinault Collection revisit the theme of the gaze and portraiture in art history, establishing a dialogue between the works on display and visitors.

Visit the Couvent des Jacobins (Pinault Collection) in Rennes, Brittany

From 14 June 2025 to 2 February 2026

Copy to create better? In partnership with the Louvre Museum, the Centre Pompidou-Metz invites around a hundred artists to freely revisit masterpieces from Antiquity to the 19th century. Among them, Agnès Thurnauer reinterprets Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People by incorporating excerpts from Monique Wittig's novel Les Guérillères, offering a feminist and politically engaged reinterpretation of the work. Installations, videos, sculptures and paintings engage in dialogue with history in an exhibition that questions the act of copying in the digital age.

Visit the Centre Pompidou-Metz in Lorraine

From 14 June 2025 to 19 April 2026

Off the coast of Cap Corse, at a depth of 120 metres, a series of intriguing sand circles caught the eye of underwater photographer Laurent Ballesta. Between 2021 and 2024, he conducted research with a team of scientists and discovered a unique underwater landscape populated by species previously unknown at this depth. Through a series of spectacular photographs, the exhibition at the Musée des Confluences in Lyon reveals an extraordinary scientific and human adventure, while celebrating the richness and fragility of the marine world.

Visit the Musée des Confluences in Lyon

From 28 June to 12 October 2025

As part of the ‘Cézanne 2025’ event organised by several museums in Aix-en-Provence, the Musée Granet is staging a major international exhibition dedicated to the painter Paul Cézanne, a native of the region and considered to be the father of modernism. A number of works on loan from major national and international museums, including The Card Players, invite visitors to (re)discover a selection of paintings and drawings produced by Cézanne between 1860 and 1899 in the bastide town of Jas de Bouffan.

Visit the Granet Museum in Aix-en-Provence 

From 5 July 2025 to 4 January 2026

André Hambourg did not only have Normandy in his heart: the dazzling light of Provence also fuelled his inspiration. It was after the Second World War, at a key period in his life, that he settled permanently in the south of France. From Mougins to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, he painted the landscapes of the south, renewing his compositions with the changing seasons. These works, including Van Gogh's olive grove acquired by the artist, are at the heart of the exhibition to be discovered at Les Franciscaines.

Visit Les Franciscaines in Deauville, Normandy

From 9 July 2025 to 5 January 2026

How did Mediterranean civilisations observe and interpret the sky? From ancient astronomy to today's horoscopes, this exhibition at the Mucem in Marseille explores our relationship with the stars through more than 300 items: scientific instruments, everyday objects, works of art and extracts from oral heritage. A cross-disciplinary approach combining ancient and modern knowledge, beliefs and cultural practices.

Visit the Mucem in Marseille, Provence

From 11 July to 2 November 2025

The Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny presents a retrospective dedicated to Andrea Branzi, an Italian designer and architect who is passionate about Monet's work and his famous garden. The exhibition highlights furniture, drawings and a monumental bamboo installation on loan from the Centre Pompidou, which is currently undergoing renovation. A tour of the gardens where major Impressionist works by Monet and artists linked to Giverny, such as Gustave Caillebotte and Pierre Bonnard, intersect.

Visit the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny 

Suzanne Valadon at the Centre Pompidou, Pablo Picasso at the Atelier des Lumières, Niki de Saint Phalle at the Grand Palais, Pierre Bonnard at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris and David Hockney at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Discover our selection of not-to-be-missed exhibitions in Paris museums and digital art centres.