Exhibition brings together more than 130 works of fin-de-siècle France

Art

May 13

Written By Staff

Photo courtesy of Grand Rapids Art Museum

The Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM) will present Decadent Spirit: French Art at the Turn of the Century from May 29 through Sept. 6, 2026. Spanning 1880 to 1910, the exhibition brings together more than 130 works by some of the era's most celebrated artists, highlighting an extraordinary chapter of artistic, cultural, and social change.

Organized by GRAM, Decadent Spirit marks the museum’s first major historical exhibition on this period in two decades. The exhibition features notable artists Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Jules Chéret, Hector Guimard, and Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, alongside early film pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, and Alice Guy-Blaché. The works on view span a wide range of media, including works on paper, painting, sculpture, metalwork, interior and urban design, and early film. Together, these works spotlight the ways artists captured the cafés, streets, theaters and domestic scenes of turn-of-the-century Paris.

“Parisian life at the turn of the twentieth century was an incredibly vibrant time, and we’ve worked to bring that compelling energy to the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s galleries," said Terra Warren, GRAM Associate Curator. “Art enveloped so much of public and even private life in this period, and this exhibition showcases many of the myriad ways that Parisians lived with these aesthetic contributions by some of art history’s most captivating voices. These objects chart a period of extraordinary aesthetic triumph."

Decadent Spirit centers on the moment known as the fin de siècle — or “end of the century.” During this era, France was transformed by new industries, emerging technologies and changing ideas about everyday life. Later named the Belle Époque or “beautiful era” by scholars, the exhibition focuses on the ways French artists, designers, performers and muses responded to this era of rapid change, and how their work helped shape the visual language of the modern age.

The exhibition moves from the bohemian cabarets and cafés of Paris to the quiet aesthetics of domestic interiors, major technological advancements leading to electrified public life, the rise of printmaking and the modern poster, the groundbreaking birth of cinema, the idealized countryside within Parisian life, and the end of the century, culminating with World War I. The exhibition closes with an early French motorcar — an 1899 voiturette — on view in the galleries, a symbol of the new mobility that connected Paris to the French coast during the Belle Époque.

GRAM members and their guests are invited to attend an early preview of the exhibit on May 28 from 7 – 9 p.m.

Lead support for the exhibition is provided by the Michigan Arts and Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support provided by Wege Foundation, James and Mary Nelson, and GRAM Exhibition Society.

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