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The Art Exhibitions Worth Traveling to Europe For This June

"I am in raptures. Giverny is a wonderful place for me," declared Claude Monet. To dream, to marvel, to travel: here are some vivid encounters, four exhibitions bathed in the sunlight of beauty. An Assouline selection for the quality-addicted.

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Left: Henri Matisse, The Striped Dress, 1938. Albertina Museum, Vienna — Batliner Collection. © Succession H. Matisse / ARS, New York. Right: Yves Saint Laurent, original sketch from Hommage à Matisse, Autumn-Winter 1981 Haute Couture Collection. © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent.

MONET AND GIVERNY (France)

This year is the centenary, to mark the occasion, the House and Gardens of Claude Monet (owned by the Académie des Beaux-Arts) invites visitors to enjoy an immersive experience at the very heart of the impressionist master's world. Throughout the seasons—from the vibrant blooms of spring to the flamboyant hues of autumn—the gardens reveal all the poetry and light that inspired the famous "Water Lilies" series of paintings. "It took me a while to understand my water lilies…. I cultivated them without ever thinking of painting them.... A landscape does not sink into you in a single day.... And then, all at once, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I picked up my palette and paintbrush. Since that time, I have scarcely had any other subject." An unforgettable getaway into Monet's private world, set within an iconic, timeless place that stands as a symbol of the French art de vivre. "Others paint a bridge, a house, a boat. I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house, and the boat exist. The beauty of the air surrounding them—and that is nothing short of the impossible."

NICE (France)
HENRI MATISSE AND YVES SAINT LAURENT — ART AND FASHION

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) sought to "draw with scissors." Inspired by this approach, Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) created numerous collages, most notably his famous "Love" posters. This posthumous encounter between two masters celebrates the power of color and the dazzling interplay of light, glimpsed as vividly in a canvas as in a gown. With lines and textures in an infinite interplay of contrasts, these polychromatic obsessions are doubly magnified at the Matisse Museum in Nice. The exhibition features a rich collection of 160 works, including paintings, haute couture and ready-to-wear garments, and archival documents, and showcases the myriad connections between the artist and the couturier-collector, who famously hung Les Coucous, tapis bleu et rose (The Cuckoos, Blue and Pink Carpet) in the living room of his Rue de Babylone residence. Two visionaries united by their shared passions: a love for Morocco and a desire to capture reality in its rawest form through a compositional process inextricably linked to life, light, and gesture. It is a jubilant dialogue between the eye and the material, one found equally in an 1980s Rive Gauche evening ensemble, in The Striped Dress, in the paper cutouts of Flowers and Fruits, and in The Dance as it is in the drawings of Yves Saint Laurent, the man who declared, "Nothing is more beautiful than a naked body."

Henri Matisse – Yves Saint Laurent | Matisse Museum, Nice, France | June 17 to September 28 | musee-matisse-nice.org

Left: Yves Saint Laurent, Tout Tendrement, Autumn-Winter 1998 Haute Couture Collection. © Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent. Right: Henri Matisse, Purple Robe and Anemones, 1937. Oil on canvas. The Baltimore Museum of Art, the Cone Collection. © Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

PARIS (France)
ROTHSCHILD AND SÈVRES

"We are opening the doors to a family history in which porcelain is not merely an object but an intimate alphabet—one of taste, elegance, and culture, passed down from Alphonse to Béatrice," asserts Muriel Mayette-Holtz, director of the Villa & Gardens Ephrussi de Rothschild and a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. A true jewel of the French Riviera (in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat), this extraordinary pink villa served as the privileged setting for a collection of eighteenth-century Sèvres porcelain, the very collection that a magnificent, immersive exhibition now places in the spotlight at the Manufacture des Gobelins, in Paris. We find ourselves amid interiors, drawing rooms, and sumptuous dining halls where platters, decorative objects, candelabra, and tureens stand proudly within the intimate embrace of a passion rendered in shades of pink, blue, and green. Exceptional loans from the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, and private collectors complement this showcase of treasures, which range from the "elephant-head" vase and the "ship-shaped" potpourri vessel to mementos from Marie-Hélène de Rothschild's Surrealist Ball, all serving to magnify a family history and the legacy of a cosmopolitan heritage.

Sèvres: A Rothschild Passion | Manufacture des Gobelins, Paris | until July 26, 2026 | mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr

COMING SOON
HELMUT NEWTON: IN HIGH GEAR

In collaboration with the Italian luxury brand Larusmiani, the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin has just inaugurated the exhibition Helmut Newton. Cars. The artist's passion for automobiles takes center stage in an open-air museum nestled within the sumptuous gardens of Villa Olmo, on the shores of Lake Como, ahead of a retrospective on the same theme in Berlin. In 1956, Newton's Porsche 356 served as the backdrop for a portrait of his wife, June. In the early 1960s, it was inside the Jaguar factory in Coventry that he photographed men's fashion. From Françoise Sagan in her Jaguar E-Type to Caroline of Monaco behind the wheel of a Mercedes 280 SL, speed and the pose celebrate their unbridled rendezvous.

Helmut Newton. Cars | Villa Olmo, Lake Como, Italy | until June 30, 2026 | newton-foundation.org

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