The major exhibitions of the new school year not to be missed

THE MORNING LIST

Artists from yesterday and today, both well-known and unknown, to admire: John Singer Sargent at the Musée d'Orsay, Agnès Thurnauer at Cognac-Jay, Gerhard Richter at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Alina Szapocznikow in Grenoble... But also worlds to discover, such as sumo wrestling in Nice. The start of the school year and autumn are rich in exhibitions not to be missed.

When John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) exhibited his Portrait of Madame X at the 1884 Paris Salon, he expected a triumph. Virginie Gautreau, his anonymous model, was an American woman married to a French banker and well-known in Parisian society. The pose is sensual, the black dress very low-cut, to the point that a strap slips off her shoulder. The painting caused a scandal, and the strap was raised, but Sargent, affected by the criticism, left Paris for London, where he would finally achieve the success he had hoped for. The painting now sits majestically in the American art collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York. However, the painter's name and work remain largely unknown in France, where no solo exhibition has ever been dedicated to him. Yet it was in Paris that the young American trained and created some of his greatest masterpieces. Conceived in partnership with the Met, the exhibition, which brings together more than 90 works, will focus on these Parisian years, in the melting pot of the world's art capital of the time, among circles of artists, writers and enlightened patrons.

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