The Salon du dessin, 2025

Under a beautiful spring sun, the Salon du Dessin opened its doors on Tuesday with a preview as popular as ever, the usual squad of international amateurs, collectors and curators never missing this unmissable event where Paris, which also inaugurated the fourth edition of the Paris Print Fair (article to come), establishes itself as the capital of graphic arts. We must welcome the conjunction of these two events, which certainly makes the week rich, and even rather physical, but as most of the institutions that travel on this occasion have the same teams to manage the drawings as the prints, there is everything to gain for both fairs. The only regret, which is certainly a recurring one, is the ever-increasing emphasis on modern and contemporary art, which this year occupies more or less half of the stands. This should not be allowed to go any further, otherwise the specificity of this fair could be lost. The increasing scarcity of old works, which is undoubtedly a reality but not as widespread as is sometimes claimed, is less of an issue than the decision of several galleries not to participate this year. We hope that some of them will return for future editions.

1. Antoine Sublet (1821-1897)
Draft design for the vault of the church of Saint Théodore in Marseille
Graphite, brown wash, white gouache - 40.5 x 29.4 cm
Galerie Sabrier & Paunet
Photo: Galerie Sabrier & Paunet

See the image in its page

But that, let’s repeat, doesn’t tarnish the pleasure of the discoveries that visitors can make there. As usual, we can only show a very small selection here, starting with a very young gallery already known to our readers, Sabrier & Paunet, which is making its first appearance at the Salon with a quality stand and a catalogue published on paper. We will take a leaf that may seem modest (ill. 1), but by an artist from Lyon whose drawings are rare and whom we had already mentioned on the occasion of a small exhibition at the Musée de la Grande…