Article - November 25, 2025

Kandinsky, Matisse, Dubuffet... When masters draw differently

Discover Klee, Matisse, Picasso, Basquiat, Hockney and so many others at the Grand Palais very soon: the exhibition Dessins sans limite unveils rarely seen works and reveals the freedom of the line as well as the evolution of drawing in the 20th and 21st centuries.

A never-before-seen look at a major collection

From December 16, the Grand Palais presents an exceptional selection from the Centre Pompidou's Cabinet d'art graphique, one of the world's most important collections of works on paper from the 20th and 21st centuries. With nearly 400 drawings on display from 120 artists, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to understand how this medium has totally reinvented itself over the last few centuries. A sensitive journey where the works respond to each other as if in a game of echoes.

The line as a space of freedom

Drawing is a simple, immediate gesture. A line on a sheet of paper, a flick of the wrist, an idea that emerges. Long considered a preparatory tool, in the 20th century it established itself as a work in its own right. The sheet is no longer just a support: it becomes a space for experimentation, for freedom.

The diversity of the works presented bears witness to this. Matisse cuts and assembles colored papers, Kandinsky makes the page vibrate with the energy of his forms, Dubuffet caricatures Parisian subway commuters. Alongside these major figures, contemporary artists further broaden the field: Basquiat, Kiki Smith, Rauschenberg, Penone, Trisha Brown and William Kentridge showing how drawing crosses disciplines, from the body in action to moving images.

Henri Matisse, *Deux danseurs Projet pour le rideau de scène du ballet « Rouge et noir »,* 1937 - 1938

David Hockney, *Selfportrait,* Mars 2001

Jean Dubuffet *Un voyage en métro, la connaissance de Paris par son sous-sol avec renouvellement complet de tous les personnages à chaque station. Les dessous de la capitale, parcours complet. Métro,* 10 mars 1943

Oeuvre colorée de Vassily Kandinsky — Vassily Kandinsky, *Sans titre,* 1915

A medium in constant reinvention

This tour highlights a medium that never ceases to reinvent itself. Studying a shape, observing a face, capturing a silhouette in the street, conjuring up an idea, letting the gesture run, exploring the trace... Drawing becomes study, narrative, impulse, writing, rhythm. A flexible, open language, capable of absorbing the intimate as well as the political, the humorous as well as the serious.

The exhibition Dessins sans limite thus reveals the power of a universal medium. From furtive sketches to the freest experimentation, let yourself be guided by the power of line and discover an art in perpetual redefinition.