Art

30th anniversary of discovery in France of world’s oldest cave paintings

A special visit is being held at the reproduction of the ‘prehistoric Sistine Chapel’

PHOTO: 32 French towns replace advertising posters with... works of art

Project aims to ‘bring a ray of light into people’s lives’ with over 1,000 spaces being converted

Van Gogh’s final years exhibition extended for another year

It will be closed from September 30 to October 18 for additional works to be hung

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Multi-million euro private art collection to be auctioned in Paris in October

Furniture pieces will also be sold alongside paintings

Iconic 'French liberty' painting returns to the Louvre

Symbol of France returns to museum after six months of repair work

How art therapy is proving a lifeline for patients in Lille

Scheme brings patients together to escape from their condition and to socialise

Couple buy Picasso plates for €4 at brocante - and sell for big profit

The two plates have now been sold at auction in France

Hockney exhibition is one of 50 shows celebrating France-UK friendship

The programme of cultural events across France will showcase work from British and French participants

American photographer Annie Leibovitz honoured in France

The photographer is being inducted into the prestigious Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris

Audrey Tautou moved to tell tale of artist hunted by Nazis in France

Actress has left semi-retirement to star in Paris show about painter Charlotte Salomon

150 years of Impressionism: how Americans saved Monet from poverty

If you visit his Normandy home you will not see a real Monet work - but there are some nearby

France and the US to host major impressionist art tour

Paintings to mark the 150th anniversary of the movement will be loaned to 34 sites in France and an exhibition is also heading to Washington

Career change: Africa safari guide to recycled art in France

We talk to Josie Easton about how wildlife still influences her ‘trash-to-treasure’ artwork in Limousin

Paris waxwork of American actor remade as first was ‘too white’

A second version of the controversial waxwork is to be unveiled today. The US actor has reposted a video of a comedian complaining: ‘you turned The Rock into a pebble’

Sensory sculpture: get in touch with art in Bordeaux

Samantha David reports on an innovative touring exhibition, running in Bordeaux until January 2024, which allows visitors to get touchy-feely with works of art

Coffin of ancient Egypt’s ‘greatest king’ goes on display in Paris

An exhibition featuring the sarcophagus of Ramses II opens in the French capital on Friday (April 7)

Rare painting found behind a door sold for €600k at auction in France

The painting by the son of Flemish master Pieter Bruegel the Elder was discovered during a routine inventory check

Rare painting of Flemish master stumbled upon abandoned in French home

The Brueghel the Younger painting, accidentally found during a house inventory, is now set to be auctioned in Paris

France ordered to return ‘lost’ Renoir, Gauguin and Cézanne artworks

The pieces were found to have been wrongfully distributed during World War Two after the death of their original art dealer, and are now held by the musées du Louvre and Orsay

Whacky waste of money or community voice - roundabout art in France

From a giant kiwi fruit to a huge face, ronds-points artwork continues to divide opinion unless it is the Arc de Triomphe

French art: Making an impression in the Hérault

We report on a superb exhibition in Lodève

Arts and culture France: singer tours aged 93, Marie-Antoinette series

A round-up of the stories creating a buzz in French art, literature and entertainment

Arts and culture France: Rolling Stones plates, arthouse cinema threat

A round-up of the stories creating a buzz in French art, literature and entertainment

Biennale de Lyon art fair now one of France’s key cultural events

Founded in 1991, it was cancelled last year due to the pandemic, but now it is back up and running until the end of the year

Chinese vase valued at €2,000 sells for €9m at French auction

The vase is of the Chinese ‘Tianqiuping’ style, and was inherited by a woman from her late mother — but experts have said the story is ‘crazy’

Exhibit celebrates French illustrator Albert Dubout’s eye for satire

Dubout was famous for his drawings of cats, but also loved to depict the French people, as a new exhibition at the artist’s museum near Montpellier shows

What’s coming up this week (September 26) in France?

A giant David Hockney artwork comes to complement the Bayeux Tapestry, the government presents its 2023 budget, rain moves in across France and more

Wall ads from golden age of French publicité preserved

As train travel grew from the late 1800s, advertisers discovered the potential of the bare gable walls commuters passed. Today these adverts are being preserved as works of art

'Paintings from Van Gogh were not designed to float around people'

Philosophers express concern over immersive art. Does it dumb down masterpieces and make us more anti-social?

Art: France’s long history of copying Old Masters at the Louvre

The rules of reproduction today are strict - copies must be a fifth larger or smaller than the original - and there is a two year waiting list

Sempé was a master illustrator but also a sociologist, say cartoonists

‘He had all of what is needed; composition, graphism, colour, expressions and a great sense of what a good caption is’

French love of comic books is writ large on Angoulême walls

We discover why the Charente city encourages mural artists to turn beloved bande dessinée heroes into huge works of art

Mammoth tusk, rare art: French police list haul of 7,000 stolen items

A website has been set up to help return the objects - worth a combined total of around €700,000 - to their rightful owners

3D replica of 33,000-year-old cave art to go on display in Marseille

The copy is based on the underwater Grotte Cosquer, which has several hundred pieces of prehistoric artwork

Discover this French cobbler’s Harry Potter-esque workshop

La cordonnerie du Vieux-Nice , a shoe repair shop, opened in 2019 in the winding streets of Nice’s quaint old town

Makhilas: Discover traditional Basque walking sticks made in France

The sticks have been made by the same family for seven generations, with the 94-year-old grandfather of the family still lending a hand

Connexion readers may have solved 1960s holiday drawing mystery

The artist’s son asked for help identifying the scene sketched by his late father, hoping to gift his 93-year-old mother a photograph as a special birthday present

Art of trimmings: The artisans who supplied French and Monaco royals

Only one firm specialising in the ancient craft operates in France. Its owners describe the challenges that their business is facing in contemporary times.

The only company making wooden jigsaws by hand in Europe is French

‘It is meticulous work but at the same time it is very creative’, says artisan

1,000 years of travel: Meandering history of France’s Bayeux Tapestry

The historic artwork’s holiday to the UK may be on hold but art historian Dr Julia Faiers explains that it has rarely been stationary for long

Meet the artist behind France’s new Napoleon commemorative sculpture

‘Travel is my most important source of inspiration’, says Emmanuel Michel, whose full-length statue stands in a southern town in Occitanie

‘Trompe-l’oeil’ homage to coastguards in Brittany wins prize

The painting of brightly-coloured toy boats in a bag won the best street art 2021 award

French crafts in focus: The art of cutting gems

France was once a hotbed for gem cutters but now Maison Piat is one of the few remaining companies offering this service

Reflection of Egyptian statue gives French party leader ‘boobs’

Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon publishes photo of himself standing in front of the ‘Seated Scribe’ with the camera angle making it look like he is shirtless

France votes for art stolen by Nazis to be returned to rightful owners

The collection includes pieces by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt and French artist Marc Chagall

Explore the gardens behind Monet's colourful lily creations

Visitors to Latour-Marliac gardens can see nearly 300 varieties of water lily growing in one hectare of pools, some of which are the original, restored basins from the 19th century

‘Best yet’ Mona Lisa replica sold at Paris auction for €273,000

A copy of Da Vinci’s famous painting from circa 1600 fetched a third more than its estimated price

France returns 26 looted treasures to Benin in historic handover

President Emmanuel Macron met his Beninese counterpart in Paris to give back the artefacts, 130 years after they were first stolen from the former French colony

Banksy exhibition in Montpellier to raise funds for refugee charity

A private collection of 250 works by the notoriously secretive British street artist is on show for free to support a cause close to his heart

French-themed books to read in October

Two history reads to see us into autumn including a detailed Matisse biography and a history of Jewish art dealers in Paris, finished with a lighter choice of an ‘Emily in Paris’ style American romance

Journées du patrimoine: Meet the maker behind world's most kissed face

This Parisian moulding workshop – open for one day this weekend – may hold the original mould of the Inconnue de la Seine, an unknown woman drowned in the 19th century whose face has inspired novels, artwork and even CPR dummies

Colours of the Eighties come to Calais in extensive exhibition

French art movement 'Figuration Libre' incorporates elements from comic books and graffiti using bright colours and exaggerated caricatured figures

‘I was very excited about the idea of creating a museum from scratch’

In September 2017, Martine and Léon Cligman announced that they were donating 600 works from their private art collection to the State

US-born French icon Josephine Baker to enter France’s Pantheon

The legendary performer will become the first black woman to enter the mausoleum, in recognition of her historic role as a singer, dancer, activist, and World War Two Resistance agent

Da Vinci’s French chateau and its digital exhibit is a Time must-see

Château du Clos Lucé in the Loire Valley opened new galleries after lockdown with works including The Last Supper being blown up and projected onto the walls

Arc de Triomphe to be wrapped in 25,000 metres of fabric for art

Work is underway to prepare the Parisian monument as a new installation in a series by Bulgarian artist Christo, due to be unveiled this autumn

Fruit basket artist shows creations at Cannes Film Festival

A young French greengrocer's daughter - and granddaughter - makes works of art out of fresh fruit and vegetables and recently made an appearance at the prominent film festival

France buys Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom manuscript

The ‘national treasure’ and shocking work of 18th-century fiction, written on a 12-metre-long scroll, has been bought with corporate sponsorship for a public library in Paris

France to launch flagship arts residency programme in America

€1.2m-a-year artistic residency scheme follows prestigious and centuries-old Villa Medici model

Tetraplegic French rapper releases new album composed with his eyes

The new ‘mini-album’ record by Pone will raise money to help people like him – who require tracheotomy operations to survive – to receive care at home

Mona Lisa ‘replica’ sells for record €2.9m at auction in Paris

The painting is known as ‘Hekking’ after its previous owner, who lived in France and bought the piece for just €5 in Nice in the 1950s – and who believed his was the ‘real’ painting

Artwork by Petit Nicolas illustrator Sempé set for first-ever auction

The artist’s work has appeared on hundreds of covers of The New Yorker magazine, as well as Paris Match and Le Figaro

French performance artist locked inside statue of himself for 7 days

The artist is known for shutting himself inside objects and this latest piece sees him sitting inside a sculpture of himself for seven days and nights non-stop

Picasso painting on display near fruit and veg in French supermarket

The store in Ile-de-France is showing the artwork near food items as a precursor to a new Pompidou Centre gallery opening nearby in 2025

French artist transforms Eiffel Tower with optical illusion

The installation will be in place for one month before being dismantled

Instrument played by Leonardo da Vinci returns to his French chateau

The arm lyre is known to have been played and loved by the Italian polymath, and is one of the instruments played in a new concert at his former Clos Lucé home

Paris Louvre uploads almost entire art collection for free online

The museum remains closed due to Covid but almost half a million major works can be seen online after a super-modern web revamp. Complete digital tours available.