Eric Bourdon - Blog
Art Capital 2025, Salon of French Artists

     Eric Bourdon takes part to the Salon of French Artists from February 19 to 22, 2025, within the Art Capital exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. The exhibited painting will be : Normandy landscape with a small sunny stream.

ART CAPITAL, MUST-SEE EXHIBITION IN EARLY 2025

     The Salon of French Artists inaugurates, as part of Art Capital, the calendar of major Parisian artistic events in 2025. Art Capital brings together 4 exhibitions : Salon Comparaisons, Salon of the Society of French Artists, Salon of Drawing and Watercolor Painting, and that of the Society of Independent Artists.

AN EXHIBITION OF MORE THAN 650 ARTISTS

     A true journey through today’s art, the Salon of French Artists brings together more than 650 contemporary artists under the glass roof of the Grand Palais and explores French cultural heritage while welcoming emerging creation. Exploring, discovering, marveling, the 235th edition of the Salon of French Artists promises to be a time of sharing and emotion. The many thematic exhibition projects and meetings will take over the aisles of the Salon, making this popular event a place for debate and new ideas.

     The Salon of French Artists exhibits each year artists from all over the world, in different sections : Painting, Work on paper, Sculpture, Foreign delegations, Mosaic, Architecture, Engraving and Photography. They’re the various expressions of contemporary art, selected by a jury elected by the members, among the gold medal-winning artists.

     More than a popular meeting place, the Salon is an influential platform where artists, amateurs, professionals from the art world and critics meet and engage in dialogue.

350 YEARS OF ART HISTORY AND EXHIBITIONS

     The Society of French Artists (Société des Artistes Français), direct heir to the Salon created by Colbert for Louis XIV, has gone through all times: royalty, empires, revolutions, wars, bringing in its wake the greatest names of artists who have marked the last centuries, among which include : Auguste Bartholdi, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Doré, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Édouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Claudel, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jacques-Louis David, Auguste Rodin, Gustave Courbet, Raoul Dufy, Théodore Géricault…

     The Salon or Paris Salon, beginning in 1667, was the official art exhibition of the works of recent graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890, it was the most prestigious art event in the world.

     As a result, its influence on French painting, artistic style and painterly conventions was enormous. The Salon was the only major art show in France, and as such it also exerted a massive, arguably disproportionate, influence on the career prospects of artists. Artists who did not conform to the artistic conventions and expectations of the French Academy were rarely if ever approved by the jury, and as a result found it almost impossible to make a successful career. Later, this would lead to several breakaway ‘Salons’.

     The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists, making it even more prestigious, if somewhat crowded. By 1820, the Salon had become a major annual event. In 1849, a number of medals and awards were instituted, while art critics in the Parisian Gazettes and other newspapers ran numerous reviews and articles on the works of art displayed.

     In 1881, the French Academy relinquished control of the Salon, in favour of the Society of French Artists.

     Proud of its history, the Salon des Artistes Français is firmly in the landscape of contemporary art as the major Parisian event of early 2025.

   Art Capital 2025, Salon des Artistes Français