Gauguin and the Adventure of Pont-Aven, Musée de Luxembourg
"I adore Brittany," Gaugin once said. "Here I find things wild and primitive. When my cries echo on the granite floor, I hear the deaf, matt, strong sound I search for in my painting." The minescule Breton village of Pont-Aven was a huge artistic haunt during the second half of the 19th century, and home to Gauguin from 1886 during his Impressionist phase. This exhibition commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of the artist, who was known for painting mainly from memory. It gathers together 70 paintings, 25 drawings, 20 prints and eight sculptures from 12 museums and private collections around the world.
· Until June 22, Musée de Luxembourg, 19 rue de Vaugirard, 6th. M° Odéon or RER Luxembourg. Tel: 01 42 34 25 95. Open Mondays and Fridays 10am-10.30pm, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 10am-7pm. Saturdays and Sundays 10am-8pm. Adults €9; under 26s €6; children €4.
Chagall, Known and Unknown, the Grand Palais
Images of flying brides, goats, acrobats and musicians recur again and again in the work of Chagall, each time reworked through the colour spectrum in a world at once harmonious and spiritual. The artist began painting in 1908 and in 1910 moved to Paris where he combined the many beauties of the city with the influences of his Russian Jewish roots to form the idiosyncratic world with which he became synonymous. By melting together modern and traditional art and absorbing the influences of Cubism, Surrealism and Suprematism, he took visual art into a poetical dimension. This exhibition features 150 paintings spanning a period of eight decades. Most excitingly it offers the chance to see several previously unknown works including a series of illustrations to La Fontains' Fables, some pieces commissioned for the Jewish Theatre in Moscow and a range of self-portraits and pictures dedicated to his wife Bella.
· Until June 23, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 3 avenue du Général-Eisenhower, 8th. Mº Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau. Tel: 01.44.13.17.17. Open 10am-8pm Mondays, Thursdays, Sundays, 10am-10pm Wednesdays. Closed Tuesdays and May 1. €10.
Nicholas de Staël, Centre Pompidou
Staël was an immigrant in every sense of the word. Born in Saint Petersburg in 1914, he spent time in Paris, the French Riviera and Provence between 1939 and 1955, when he committed suicide. Incapable of finding his own territory, he chose to divide himself between the Old representational Empire and the Cubist revolution, thus earning the title Prince of Despair and Bohemia. This retrospective reflects the journey of an artist seeking to re-invent himself and aims to understand his work beyond the romantic clichés so often applied to it through a varied display of 200 chronologically-ordered engravings, paintings, drawings, illustrated books and personal papers. Particularly noteworthy are the abstract works, which reflect Staël's battle over aesthetics and hint at an inner turmoil, reiterated in many paintings by the range of dull colours - beiges, ochres, greys and whites - used by the artist.
· Until June 30, Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, place Georges Pompidou, 4th. M° Châtelet-les Halles or Rambuteau. Tel: 01.44.78.12.33. Open daily 11am-9pm. Closed Tuesdays. €8.50; €6.50 reduced rate.
From Cézanne to Dubuffet
Swiss art collector Jean Planque was a friend to many of the best known artists of the 20th century, and this rare exhibition of 170 paintings and a dozen sculptures represents some of the best pieces in his collection. Artists including Redon, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rouault, les Delaunay, de Staël, Tapiès, Francis, Aloïse and many more are on show, including Dubuffet, whose imaginative capacity is demonstrated by 13 paintings, an ink drawing and a papier-mâché sculpture. The 15 Picasso canvasses dating back to 1917 include the famous Harlequin, and these are displayed side-by-side with the soft watercolours of Cézanne, the choice of Cubist works by Braque, Léger or Delaunay and the poets Klee and Bissière. Added surprises come in the form of A Vase of Flowers signed Van Gogh and dated 1886 and a piece entitled Portrait of a Tahiti Lady by Gauguin.
· Until July 27. Hôtel de Ville, Salle Saint Jean entrance, 5 rue Labau, 4th. M° Hotel de Ville. Open daily 11am-7pm. Closed Mondays. Free entrance.