Gustave Le Gray · Peintre photographe

The Musée d’Orsay devotes an exhibition dossier to Gustave Le Gray, who continued to paint even as his photographs were establishing his reputation. The display links a rediscovered painting, photographic prints, and works by his contemporaries. Some acquisitions are shown there for the first time.

At the 1853 Salon, Le Gray exhibited a painted portrait of his wife, Palmira Leonardi, dressed in a black mourning gown. The rediscovered painting allows us to revisit this aspect of his work. A pupil of Paul Delaroche, Le Gray kept up the practice of drawing and painting throughout his career.

Two years before this portrait, he produced a photograph with Auguste Mestral in the cloister of Sainte-Marie d’Arles-sur-Tech. Where the painting concentrates the gaze on Palmira, the arches give a group its place in the image. The comparison highlights Le Gray’s choices of composition from one medium to the other. The two practices intersect even in his Salon work, where he also photographed the rooms and the paintings hung there.

Drawing on its collections and loans, Orsay thus revisits the links between the painter’s atelier and the photographer’s experiments, who also contributed to perfecting and teaching the technique of his art.

Practical information
- Thursday night opening until 9:45 p.m.
- Closed on Mondays and on December 25.
- Free admission on December 5 and 6 for its anniversary, with opening until 8 p.m. on Saturday the 5th.