Rendezvous in Paris: Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani & Co (1900-1939) brings 80 masterworks to Louvre Abu Dhabi, many of which are being seen in the Middle East for the first time, to tell the story of one of the great watershed moments in the history of art and culture.
In the first three decades of the 20th century Paris was one of the most fashionable and romantic cities in the world, acting as an inexorable draw for the wealthy and the famous it also attracted the brilliant and the radical, the dangerous and the daring.
During this period, artists such as Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris invented Cubism while André Breton and Man Ray, Max Ernst and Salvador Dali dreamed of Surrealism.
These were decades when Paris not only hosted the 1924 Olympic Games but a series of major international expositions that confirmed the city’s position as a cultural epicentre just an international constellation of talents and taste-makers were helping to define 20th century modernity.
This heady mix of creatives and intellectuals ranged across every imaginable discipline, including the master couturier Paul Poiret and furniture designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, writers such as James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway, the American composer George Gershwin, the entertainer Josephine Baker and the visionary architect Le Corbusier.
A landmark exhibition organised by Louvre Abu Dhabi, Centre Pompidou, Paris and Agence France-Muséums, Rendezvous in Paris features paintings, sculptures and photographs by 40 of the period’s biggest names including Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, Modigliani and Juan Gris, De Chirico, Brancusi and Brassaï, the Hungarian-born photographer whose work chronicled bohemian Paris in the 1920s.

If Rendezvous in Paris takes a deep dive into an extraordinary moment in a city’s history, 10,000 Years of Luxury investigates a phenomenon that has recurred throughout human history. Featuring more than 350 objects that explore what different societies have valued most across ten millennia, the exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the history of taste from ancient Egypt to the 18th century French court at Versailles and contemporary catwalks.
Drawing from the collections of French museums including the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Musée du Louvre, 10,000 Years of Luxury features ancient votive, a modern dress by the Lebanese designer Elie Saab and masterworks from couturiers such as Chanel, Dior and Balenciaga.
Luxury is both the inspiration and the source of USO - The Perfumed Cloud, one of two contemporary installations that will grace Louvre Abu Dhabi’s precincts this autumn.
The first installation of its kind to have been mounted in the Middle East, USO (unidentified scented object) combines French luxury know-how with ethereal architecture and the very latest climate technology.
Housed in a specially-commissioned chamber that will sit on an island under the museum’s vast dome, this olfactory installation takes the form of a cloud that envelops visitors in a bespoke fragrance, developed by Maison Cartier’s in-house perfumier Mathilde Laurent. The chamber, a transparent cube, has been designed by the German climate engineering consultancy Transsolar KlimaEngineering.
If USO - The Perfumed Cloud deals primarily with our sense of smell and fragrance, Susanna Fritscher’s Für die Luft (For the Air) is an installation that plays with visual perception and the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s subtle play of light. A maze composed of thousands of diaphanous, silicon threads that stretch from the floor to the ceiling of one of the museum’s galleries, Für die Luft appears like a mist, catching the rain of light that descends through the gallery, transforming visitor’s perception of the space and the space occupied by their own bodies in the process.

This autumn Louvre Abu Dhabi is also delighted to unveil almost 600 new objects in our galleries as part of our annual artwork rotation. These include the mysterious Peacock of'Abd al-Malik the Christian, a profoundly hybrid object whose function and meaning have long been open to question.
A proud bronze bird bearing Arabic and Latin inscriptions, the peacock is believed to have been used as a liturgical vessel by a Christian community living in Islamic Iberia, al-Andalus, possibly at the time of the Ummayyad caliphate (711-1031 CE).
Admission to Rendezvous in Paris: Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani & Co (1900-1939), 10,000 Years of Luxury, USO - The Perfumed Cloud and Für die Luft are all included in the price of a general admission ticket. Pre-booking is highly advised due to the peak period, but you can buy your ticket in advance here.
Autumn 2019 at Louvre Abu Dhabi is a season of exploration and discovery. We’ll have many more exciting announcements to make in the coming weeks and months about our exhibitions and events, so make sure you are the first to hear about them by creating your own Louvre Abu Dhabi account, signing up for email updates or by following us online.
Become a Louvre Abu Dhabi member today and see all of our exhibitions for free with a guest. See here for Louvre Abu Dhabi opening hours.
Thanks to its breathtaking architecture, designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the Louvre Abu Dhabi wa named as one of the seven urban wonders of the world in 2018.
In its first year the museum welcomed more than one million visitors, establishing itself as one of the leading cultural institutions on the global stage with a world-class art collection that includes masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Paul Gaugin supported by four major international exhibitions each year.
Host to a year-round programme of exhibitions, film screenings, talks and live performances, the museum also includes a children’s museum that presents its own family-focused exhibitions, events and workshops in Arabic and English for children aged six to twelve. These include interactive games such as A Costume Adventure, which is inspired by the clothing portrayed in artworks from the museum’s permanent galleries.
Visitors can make a day of their visit thanks to the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s café’s, Art Lounge and boutique.
The Museum Café offers a day-long dining experience that blends the best of international and local cuisine in a setting that affords spectacular views of Abu Dhabi’s sea and skyline
For visitors with limited time, healthy, kid-friendly “grab-and-go” options are also available while serious coffee lovers can head for our Aptitude Café. Housed in the idyllic outdoor setting of the Louvre Abu Dhabi park, Aptitude Café is one of Abu Dhabi’s firsts speciality coffee shops.
For visitors of a more adventurous disposition, Louvre Abu Dhabi hosts kayaking tours around the museum that afford unparalleled views of its architecture and all-enveloping dome, the centrepiece of Jean Nouvel’s vision.
For an even closer view of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s dome, the source of its unique ‘Rain of Light’, visitors can also visit the museum’s rooftop Art Lounge, our lounge-bar which nestles beneath the museum’s stunning 7500 tonne dome.For an even closer view of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s dome, the source of its unique ‘Rain of Light’, visitors can also visit the museum’s rooftop Art Lounge, our lounge-bar which nestles beneath the museum’s stunning 7500 tonne dome.