From the March 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
The format for the 33rd edition of Salon du Dessin is essentially the same as it was in its first. It takes place inside the Palais Brongniart on the Place de la Bourse – a venue that can fit only 39 exhibitors, although the event’s organisers have never seemed too bothered about this. On the contrary – and as aficionados of drawings know better than anyone – limitations of scale can be their own form of freedom.
Because ‘the size cannot be increased’, explains Louis de Bayser, the fair’s president, ‘we have to be really careful when choosing which dealers to invite’. There are a number of key notes to hit every year – ‘we want a variety of period, from Old Masters to contemporary; we want a variety of schools, from French to Italian, Dutch to English; we want there to be plenty of French dealers, yes, but also dealers from across Europe and the United States.’ French dealers tend to make up about half of the slots and there’s a consistent turnover rate (this year, 12 dealers are new to the fair). Salon du Dessin has always had faith in the quality of the dealers it attracts and the endlessly rich subject of drawing itself. Testament to this is an extensive programme of talks and museum partnerships (this year’s guest of honour is the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims).
Ni homme, ni femme, pas même Auvergnat (1909), Marcel Duchamp. Photo : Jean-Louis Losi; © Galerie Dina Vierny
At Galerie Eric Coatalem is a single scrap of music staff paper that brings together two giants of Romanticism: Eugène Delacroix and Frédéric Chopin. On the left are scored out a few notes by Chopin; from the right, a brown ink tiger sketched by Delacroix leers at them. It was sold by George Sand – the composer’s lover in the 1830s and a close friend of the painter – after Delacroix’s death in 1863. Another survival from the 1830s comes in the form of 25 drawings of scenes from Gulliver’s Travels by the prolific French artist J.J. Grandville, preparatory to an illustrated edition of Swift’s classic published in 1838 and featuring 346 of Grandville’s wood engravings. The set is on sale for €65,000 at the stall of Galerie Ronny Van de Velde from Antwerp.
The fair’s 20th-century offering this year is boosted by the appearance of global mega-dealer Michael Werner, who brings drawings by Markus Lüpertz and Francis Picabia; at Galerie Dina Vierny, meanwhile, is an early caricature in Chinese ink by Marcel Duchamp, depicting an androgynous figure and titled Ni homme, ni femme, pas même Auvergnat (1909). As for the Old Masters – de Bayser points to a shortage of ‘really important drawings coming on the market’. This means that, where the mid-tier market is sluggish, the prices that truly significant pieces can command when they do appear are continuing to grow. De Bayser’s own gallery is offering a recently discovered compositional study by Federico Zuccari for his frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola; a macabre and highly dramatic scene depicting the corpses exposed by the recession of the biblical floodwaters, it is brought to a beautiful and unusual level of finish with highlights in white gouache.
Salon du Dessin takes place from 26–31 March at the Palais Brongniart, Paris
Gallery highlights
Cy Twombly
Until 22 March
Gagosian, New York
Twombly’s gestural scribblings are writ large in this show, which sprawls across two floors of Gagosian’s premises at 980 Madison Avenue. There are major bodies of work from 1968 – the austere ‘blackboard’ paintings – through to 1990. They include Five Day Wait at Jiayuguan, a series of drawings that emerged from Twombly’s travels through China in 1979, shown at the Venice Biennale in 1980 and reunited here for the first time since.
The Old Assassin (1989), William S. Burroughs. Photo: © Jonathan Greet; © Estate of William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
6 March–5 April
October Gallery, London
In his postmodern deconstructions of literary form Burroughs often drew on techniques from visual art – most notably with his ‘cutups’, a collaborative process he pioneered with painter Brion Gysin. But Burroughs also worked in collage, photography, film and – increasingly in later life – painting. This show makes plain his restlessness as a painter, flitting between figuration and abstraction and using a prodigious range of materials.
Alioune Diagne: Jokkoo
6 March–1 May
Templon, New York
For the inaugural Senegalese pavilion at the Venice Biennale last year, Alioune Diagne constructed a spectacular installation of 16 interlocking paintings – figurative scenes depicting daily life in Senegal, formed from minute, calligraphic marks the artist calls ‘unconscious signs’. His first solo show in the United States encompasses 30 new canvases that reflect on the influence of African American culture on the African continent.
Reclining Painter (2023), Celia Paul. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro; © Celia Paul
Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts
14 March–17 April
Victoria Miro, London
This exhibition of recent paintings is timed to coincide with the publication of a massive new monograph, covering six decades of Paul’s work with essays by Hilton Als, Clare Carlisle, Karl Ove Knausgård and others. On display here are a series of self-portraits presenting the artist in mourning for her late husband and the titular Colony of Ghosts, in which Paul reflects on her ambivalent relationship to her male School of London contemporaries.
Fairs in Focus
Maastricht Antiquarian Book & Print Fair
14–16 March
Sint Jans Church, Maastricht
Coinciding with the opening weekend of TEFAF is the 17th edition of this convivial event, in which around 30 antiquarian booksellers rub shoulders in the gothic Sint Jans Church. This year offers an exclusive first peek at a silkscreen print by Marco Jeurissen, commissioned for this year’s Pilgrimage of the Relics – a seven-yearly Catholic procession that dates back to the Middle Ages.
Paris Print Fair
27–30 March
Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris
A recent addition to the various satellites of Salon du Dessin, this boutique affair is hosting its fourth edition at the Couvent des Cordeliers, with 25 galleries bringing works of engraving, etching, drypoint, lithography and more that demonstrate the enormous variety of printmaking through the ages. Among six new exhibitors is Den Otter Fine Art from Rotterdam, which brings an eclectic display of prints by artists including Rembrandt and Wenceslaus Hollar.
From the March 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.