PARIS.- The Salon du Dessin is the world’s leading event showcasing the very best in Old, Modern and Contemporary art. It is also the central event for all the peripheral shows and sales focusing on paper-based arts during Drawing week (La Semaine du Dessin) when Paris becomes the global capital of drawing for a week. With 39 exhibitors and a significant proportion of foreign galleries (19 from 8 different countries), the 33rd edition of the Salon du Dessin will be welcoming important new exhibitors who have never before exhibited at the Salon du Dessin: the London galleries Stern Pissarro and James Butterwick, the Michael Werner gallery of contemporary art present in 5 cities around the world, the Galleria d'Arte Maggiore, specialising in 20th century Italian art, the renowned French gallery Larock-Granoff, the Munich gallery Florian Sundheimer, the antique French art gallery F. Baulme Fine Arts, and the young gallery Sabrier & Paunet. The galleries Claude Bernard, Galerie des Modernes, Christopher Bishop from New York and Ronny Van de Velde from Antwerp are returning after several years' absence.

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims, guest of honour at the Salon du Dessin 2025

Currently undergoing renovation and extension work, the museum is continuing to bring its collections to life, particularly those in its rich graphic arts collection, thanks to an invitation from the Salon du Dessin. The museum is due to reopen in 2026. The 46 drawings selected and exhibited at the Salon du Dessin include the incredible series of thirteen portraits by Lucas Cranach the Younger, drawings by Domenico Campagnola, Simon Vouet, Charles Le Brun, Jean-François Millet, Léon Lhermitte, Joseph Sima, Léonard Tsugouharu Foujita and others.

Tavolozza Foundation: behind the scenes of a collection

The other guest of honour will be the Tavolozza Foundation, founded in 2001 by the drawing collector Katrin Bellinger. Fascinated by the artistic process and the mystery that surrounds it, she chose to focus on a single theme: the artist at work, and her collection today includes more than 1,800 drawings, paintings, engravings, photographs and sculptures from the Renaissance to the present day, a selection of which will be exhibited at Salon du Dessin.

Traveling artists and travel drawing

Les Rencontres Internationales du Salon de Dessin will focus on the theme Traveling artists and travel drawings. The two days of study, led by Marco Simone Bolzoni, Curator of Old Master and 19th Century drawings at the Debra and Leon Black Collection in New York, will focus more particularly on the period from the 18th century to the present day.

Salon du Dessin, epicenter of numerous events around drawing

The Salon du Dessin is the epicenter of numerous events both inside and outside the fair, making Paris the global capital of drawing for a week. For the 25th consecutive year, the Salon du Dessin, has organized Drawing week, a popular off-site program, in partnership with around twenty institutions including the musée de l’Armée – Invalides, the musée d’Orsay, the musée du Louvre, the musée Gustave Moreau, the musée Cognacq-Jay, the Beaux-Arts de Paris, la BnF, the musée Jean-Jacques Henner, the Collection Emile Hermès, the INHA, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the musée du Domaine Royal de Marly, the musée de Montmartre, the Fondation des Artistes, the Petit Palais, the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the musée Carnavalet, the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

The partnership with Drawing Now Paris art fair, initiated three years ago, will also be reiterated and will allow visitors to one of the fairs reduced price access to the other (€25 to visit both fairs instead of €32) and thus promote visits to the both fairs. As curators of artworks on paper from foreign museums (also responsible for prints) will be in Paris for the Salon de Dessin, they will also be able to visit the 4th edition of the Paris Print Fair.

The 18th Contemporary Drawing Prize from the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Foundation

Since 2010, the Contemporary Drawing Prize from the Daniel & Florence Guerlain Foundation, created in 2007, has been awarded at the Salon du Dessin. The three nominees for the 2025 Prize are the Irish Alice Maher, born in 1956, le Belgian Gideon Kiefer, born in 1970 and the Italian Ettore Tripodi, born in 1985. Their work will be shown at the Salon du Dessin where the name of the winner will be announced on Thursday 27 March 2025.

"Imagine new stained-glass windows for Notre Dame"

Each year the magazine Le Petit Léonard which initiated a Children’s Drawing Competition in partnership with the Salon du Dessin, receives hundreds of drawings from all over mainland France and overseas. This year the theme of the competition, open to all children, readers of the magazine, aged between 7 and 14, will be "Imagine new stained-glass windows for Notre Dame". The drawings of 3 winners from each of the 3 age groups will be exhibited at the Salon du Dessin among drawings by great masters. For the second year running, thanks to the initiative of NOC! (Nous On Crée !) association, children hospitalised at the Institut Curie will be taking part in the competition and exhibiting their work at the Salon du Dessin.