“I am fully motivated to ensure that this institution continues to shine, offering an ever-growing public a wide range of beautiful artistic discoveries.”
Christophe Leribault, President of Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie

The Musée d’Orsay is committed to providing visitors with the best possible welcome and experience. With the addition of two new spaces in the Nave – on the upper and lower levels – visitors will be better equipped to plan their visit. On the upper level the museum’s iconic 3-D model and large visuals of the various collection spaces will be displayed. On the lower level, the museum will provide context about the building’s history and architecture through video projections that can be seen from afar. These enhanced images and navigation tools will offer a comprehensive introduction to visitors of all backgrounds and languages and help them navigate the museum and galleries from the start.

The museums invite contemporary artists to create exhibitions, installations and cultural programming. Inspired by the museums’ collections, they share their special viewpoints with the public in innovative ways, that emphasize the relevance of Impressionist works to our contemporary world.

At the Musée d’Orsay:

The program highlights the richness of the collections in a new fluid form of presentation and finds inspiration in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, photography, and architecture. The works exposed are eloquent witnesses of a period of dramatic change in the arts, in a rapidly changing world of industrialization, mass migrations into the cities, innovation, and democratization… the beginning of modernity. The contemporary programming employs a variety of formats in the museum’s gallery spaces and online that range from podcasts and videos to exhibitions, to conferences, and installations. The world’s most important collection of works from the 19th and early 20th century remains relevant to today’s artists and enchanted visitors.

Featured Artists: Julian Schnabel, Glenn Ligon, Tracey Emin, Christodoulous Panayiotu, Yan Pei-Ming, Francesco Vezzoli, M/M (Paris), Laurent Grasso, Marlene Dumas, Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Maylis de Kerangal, Sophie Calle.

At the Musée de l’Orangerie:

The Musée de l’Orangerie reserves two spaces  for modern and contemporary works to infuse the collections with today’s energy. One gallery is integrated into the Jean Walter- Paul Guillaume permanent collection in a fascinating exchange between the past and our present via painting, sculpture, graphic arts, audio and film installations. The second space outside of the permanent collection is in dialogue with Monet’s masterpiece:  New contemplative and spiritual creations flow from his fabled “Waterlilies” across all media (painting, photography, sculpture, installations…).

Featured Artists: Richard Jackson, Ann Veronica Janssens, Alex Katz, Patrick Tosani, Janaina Tschäpe, Isabelle Cornaro, David Hockney, Ange Leccia.

The magic of the Waterlilies inspired the great artists of the 50s and beyond: Major works by Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, and Jackson Pollock were brilliantly contrasted with Monet’s masterpieces. Ellsworth Kelly’s Tableau Vert was  framed by multiple drawings to guide the visitor into the Waterlilies galleries, a display made possible through AFMO’s support for an unusual exhibition celebrating history, art, beauty, and peace. AFMO is proud to have made it possible for the Ellsworth Kelly works of art to be part of this stunning Franco-American exhibition.

In 2015, Johnston was one of the stars of the large two-part exhibition on female photographers at the Orsay and the Orangerie, an exhibition in collaboration with the Library of Congress. Johnston’s photographs also are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA and the National Portrait Gallery.

Visitors stroll among masterpieces by Pradier and Carpeaux, Rodin and Maillol. Thirty years later, grime and dirt mark the passage of time. AFMO contributed to the restoration and cleaning of 41 sculptures to bring them back to their state of grace.

This extraordinarily generous gesture represents a special event in the history of French collections and the Musée d’Orsay was proud to add this donation to its prized Nabi holdings. AFMO granted funds for the protective box framing of the 50 paintings. Box framing is a recently developed technique that shields the paint layer against moisture and temperature variations behind a thin pane of anti-reflective glass.

The exhibition held in 2016, focused on Bazille’s contribution to the concerns of avant-garde painting in the 1860’s – modern life, the renewal of traditional genres such as portraits, nudes and still lives.

The exhibition and the accompanying catalog testify to the importance of both the drawings in the context of the Orsay’s collections and the 19th-century French architects’ and American historians’ renewed interest in them in the 1970s. In 2012, Neil Levine donated his collection to the Musée d’Orsay via the procedures that AFMO put in place for American donors to encourage gifts of art.

AFMO’s commitment supports the refurbishment of the lighting in the Orangerie’s legendary oval galleries that holds Monet’s world-renowned Water Lilies (Les Nymphéas). The celebrated Impressionist artist gave these works to the French State on Nov.12, 1918, the day after the Armistice which ended World War I. Since the paintings were installed in the Orangerie Museum in 1927, millions of visitors from all over the world have marveled at these monumental and cherished masterpieces. Through the support of our members and event participants, including a major gift from an individual donor, AFMO is proud to make this contribution toward these renovations at the Orangerie.

the renowned work is in a fragile state, largely due to its poor storage conditions before it entered the national collections. Restoration of the painting is a priority for the Musée d’Orsay. The conservation work will take place in situ to let the public experience all that is involved in such a mammoth project. The project is the beneficiary of the Museum’s first ever crowd-funding initiative in France (ulule.com/courbet). As of October 2014 the campaign had surpassed its initial goal, showing the public’s affinity for this beloved masterpiece. Also, corporate support has come from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Conservation Project and Saint-Gobain. The budget is approximately $760,000.  In 2013, AFMO granted $50,000 toward this project and was pleased to announce a second grant of $ 150,000 in 2015!

This exhibition selects drawings from more than 100,000 archived in the museum and focuses mainly on French artists from the 19th century with special attention on artists of the Modernity, such as Degas, Manet, and Redon. Page by page, the catalog confronts the 19th century artist with contemporary artists, writers, film makers – Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, Fernando Botero, David Hockney, Amish Kapoor, and Wim Wenders among them – exploring their unique emotions and developing the paradox of “archives of the dream” featured in the title.

Earlier this year, curator Yves Badetz, in charge of acquisitions, approached us with their discovery in the south of France of a Herter Brother chaise longue.  Approved by our board a few months later, the museum purchased the piece, which is currently in its restoration department to repair the badly damaged legs and upholstery. Paying tribute to the master craftsmen, they strive to re-create its original splendor. The Herter Brothers were the interior designers of choice for the wealthy barons of America’s “Gilded Age”, known for designing the famous Red Room in the White House under President Ulysses S. Grant. Having left Germany in the mid-19th century, the Herter family continued the fine woodworking traditions of the “old world” in their new homeland and quickly rose to fame and fortune as cabinet makers and interior designers for America’s “first families”. Yves Badetz sought the acquisition of the chairs and chaise longue so visitors can compare the different aesthetic tastes in style and decor in 19th century France and the United States.

focused a large part of their outstanding collection of 19th century and early 20th century works on the Nabis movement, from 1890 – 1900. Many of these masterpieces (with works of Vuillard, Bonnard, Redon, Denis and many more) were exhibited in France for the first time. Thanks to the generous support of Sotheby’s,  the American Friends Musée d’Orsay sponsored the English catalog of  “A Passion for France: The Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection“.

The Herter Brothers were most known for their decoration of the Red Room, in the White House, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.  The seats and backs of the chairs are made of green tufted velvet, which are framed with ornate carving in ebony and ivory inlay.  The chairs could have been the same ones seen in early photos of the mansion belonging to railroad magnate Mark Hopkins, located on Nob Hill, San Francisco.  They were more likely part of the collection of the immense William H. Vanderbilt residence, located on 640 Fifth Avenue in New York. The Vanderbilts entrusted the entire design of their residence to the Herter Brothers. The fine pointed backs of the Chairs, and pierced carving, evoke Arabic calligraphy and ancient Syrian metal inlays, giving them their “Moorish” character.  They are examples of the eclectic taste seen in the United States between 1875 and 1885. The Herter family emigrated from Germany to the United States in the mid- 19th century. The father trained his sons in old world woodworking traditions, enabling them to become the cabinet-makers and interior designers for “first families.”  Acquisitions curator Yves Badetz sought the acquisition to offer visitors to the Orsay a basis of comparison of aesthetic tastes of the 19th century.

The exhibition was shown in Paris March 12 – July 1, 2012. It included a rare opportunity to see Edgar Degas’ intimate pastels of the nude, seldom on view due to their fragile nature.

The 9-foot tall Liberty stood next to the Sénat building in the Jardins de Luxembourg for over 100 years. It was removed from the park in December 2011 after it was damaged by vandalism. AFMO celebrated the restoration with an inauguration reception on July 2, 2012. Learn more and view photos »

The symposium was a collaboration between the Terra Foundation, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Orsay. It explored the racial and cultural identities of African American artists in France from the 19th century to the present day, featuring scholarly presentations by Richard Powell, Marc Simpson, Renee Ater, Anna Lafont, and Sarah Wilson, among others.

Often credited with beginning the move towar d“Modern Art,” the highly personal subject matter of Manet’s paintings, the manner in which they were painted, and the way he chose to show and market his work, were totally new for his time. Curated by the Orsay’s Stéphane Guégan, this was the first major exhibition in France devoted to Manet since the memorable 1983 exhibition at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, organized by Françoise Cachin, former director of the Musée d’Orsay.

The state-of-the-art “cabinet” displays fragile works of art on paper that are of great scientific and aesthetic value. Due to the Orsay’s recent addition of masterpieces from the Louvre’s archives, more of the museum’s collection of drawings, sketches, photographs and pastels will be available for public viewing. In addition to the “cabinet,” a studio for restoration and framing of the objects is planned to conserve and protect this important cultural heritage of the 19th century.