4 November 2026 — 3 May 2027

Louvre Photo

The Louvre opened as a museum only a few decades before photography was invented. Blending reality and imagination and travelling through time and space, it soon became a rich source of inspiration for practitioners of the new art. “Louvre Photo” takes the Louvre as model, subject, muse and point of departure for reinvention. Through more than 300 photographs of the museum – its artworks, galleries and open spaces, its famous and anonymous visitors, its staff, its hidden corners and behind-the-scenes corridors – the exhibition invites visitors to explore and discover, to step back and take a fresh look at the museum, the institution and its collections, sometimes with humour and a touch of subversion. The exhibition covers the long period from the invention of photography to the present day, from the first photographers to those invited to photograph the museum in recent times, most recently Robert Polidori. These years were marked by momentous events such as the Paris Commune, the two World Wars and the growth of tourism and diplomacy during the Trente Glorieuses, France’s thirty years of prosperity from 1945 to 1975. The Louvre itself went through major milestones: its transformation from palace into museum under the Second Empire, the evacuation and return of its collections during both World Wars and the Grand Louvre works of the 1980s. “Louvre Photo” confines itself to a single setting, bounded by the walls of the palace and the gates of the Tuileries Garden. It brings to light the wealth of photographic archives held by the Louvre’s curatorial departments and documentation services, together with collections from other French institutions including the Archives nationales, the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Musée d’Orsay, the Musée Carnavalet and the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris. It also presents photographic commissions made by the Louvre since the early 2000s. Exhibition design is by Juan-Felipe Alarcón, with graphic design by Atelier Pierre/Pierre. The exhibition is part of the French Ministry of Culture’s Photography Bicentenary programme (1 September 2026 – 30 September 2027). Curated by Quentin Bajac, Director of the Jeu de Paume, and Dominique de Font-Réaulx, Senior Curator and Adviser to the President-Director of the Musée du Louvre.

Musée du Louvre