Le Printemps du dessin returns for its 9th edition from 20 March to 21 June 2026, confirming its place as France’s key national event dedicated to contemporary drawing. Created in 2017 by the team behind Drawing Now Paris, the initiative now brings together more than 100 participating venues across the country, including 53 new structures and 16 National Monuments, all supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Centre des monuments nationaux.
From Paris to the most rural regions, museums, FRACs, art centres, art libraries, heritage sites, media libraries and public spaces will host over 150 encounters with artists, ranging from exhibitions and performances to workshops, drawing walks and drawing concerts, with many free events designed to foster accessibility and participation. The 2026 programme highlights drawing as a living, nomadic practice that easily adapts to historic monuments, schools and gardens, and increasingly intersects with performance, dance, music and craft practices such as ceramics and embroidery.
Le Printemps du dessin will be marked by a special presentation at the Arc de Triomphe, where the Centre des Monuments Nationaux will give free rein to artist Camille Chastang for a new exhibition. Conceived as a site-specific installation combining bespoke wall coverings, works on paper and ceramic pieces, the project will run from 21 March to 19 April 2026.
Other emblematic venues such as the, the Beaux-Arts de Paris, the Musée Gustave Moreau, the Musée Jean-Jacques Henner, the Goethe-Institut and the Espace Jacques Villeglé will present installations, evening events and immersive exhibitions by artists including Boris Labbé, Timo Herbst and Susanna Inglada. Across the regions, the programme extends from environmental narratives in Brittany, to textile-based drawing in Normandy, large-scale installations in Auvergne‑Rhône‑Alpes, and major institutional shows such as the retrospective devoted to F’murrr at the Musée Tomi Ungerer in Strasbourg.
Placing the encounter between artists and audiences at its core, Le Printemps du dessin aims to “put a pencil in everyone’s hand”, inviting visitors not only to look at works but to draw themselves, in order to demystify artistic practice and bring the public as close as possible to contemporary creation.
