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The Photography Exhibitions Not To Miss This July

This month, Culture Lounge celebrates photography through artists who have turned their gaze into a celebration of movement and silhouettes whose contours they elevate as if sketching them. It is a tribute to poise and style, core values of the House, in a quest for elegance that transcends trends and decades. Absolutely timeless.

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Variant of The Yellow Smock Coat (1950) © Estate of Lillian Bassman

LEE MILLER: FEARLESS (Paris)

This is the largest retrospective dedicated to the artist in France in twenty years. It brings together over 250 prints, offering a new perspective on the work of a woman who was, in turn, a model, a Surrealist artist, a fashion photographer, and a war correspondent accredited by the U.S. Army. Whether appearing as the Statue in Jean Cocteau’s film The Blood of a Poet, serving as the living icon for Man Ray and his solarized photographs, or documenting the ruins of London, Lee Miller reveals a multifaceted personality, both a witness to and a protagonist of beauty, as well as to the horror of the Nazi regime’s concentration camps. “I, myself, prefer describing the physical damage of destroyed towns and injured people to facing the shattered morale and blasted faith of those who thought ‘things are going to be like they were.’”

Lee Miller: Fearless | Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France | until August 2, 2026 | mam.paris.fr

LILLIAN BASSMAN: BAZAAR AND BEYOND (New York)

Both a photographer and an art director, the prodigious Lillian Bassman (1917–2012) left behind a vast body of work that is now being celebrated by the Metropolitan Museum. She was one of those pioneers whose experiments blurred the lines between painting and photography. Her prints, layouts, and collages bear witness to a boldness that sought to reinvent the silhouette, not merely to reproduce it but to express it through a lens of sensibility. She notably spearheaded an avant-garde movement, championing its vision at Harper’s Bazaar starting in 1941.

Lillian Bassman: Bazaar and Beyond | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States | until August 6, 2026 | metmuseum.org/exhibitions/lillian-bassman-bazaar-and-beyond

NEW WOMAN, NEW VISION. WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE BAUHAUS (Berlin)

Their names were Gertrud Arndt, Ellen Auerbach, Irene Bayer, Lotte Stam-Beese, Irena Blühovà, Marianne Brandt, Lotte Collein... While their names may not have withstood the test of time, their work, hovering between abstraction and figuration, embodies an absolute modernity. This exhibition celebrates that modernity through nearly three hundred photographs created by these trailblazing women. Their perspectives and framing reveal a way of living and celebrating freedom, unfettered and unrestrained. Unearthed from the collection of the Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung, these images reveal a timeless vision. It is an ode to the freedom to be and to see, a theme explored here in dialogue with three contemporary photographers.

New Woman, New Vision. Women Photographers of the Bauhaus | Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin, Germany | until October 4, 2026 | bauhaus.deen/visit/exhibitions/new-woman-new-vision

LA OTRA MIRADA (Madrid)

She has been dubbed “the little fairy of Madrid.” Breaking away from the minimalist aesthetic norms of the 1980s, Sybilla celebrated a love for draping and cuts inherited from a master, Balenciaga, through her fashion, telling a story filled with poetry and dreams. As part of the official PHotoESPAÑA 2026 program, this exhibition unveils, for the first time, a vast selection from the historical photographic archives of her advertising campaigns. These images were created by figures such as Javier Vallhonrat and Juan Gas, a frequent collaborator of Almodóvar, all key players in the Movida Madrileña movement. It is a celebration of a world defined by curves, a dreamlike tribute to the act of creation.

La Otra Mirada | Galería Plaza del Gato, Madrid, Spain | until September 19, 2026 | phe.es/exposicion/la-otra-mirada-archivo-sybilla

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