Paris, France — Drawings successfully swept through Paris last month at the Drawing Now and Salon du Dessin drawing fairs with the Salon du Dessin bringing in 2,000 visitors for the opening reception alone, clearly confirming its place as the world’s leading drawing show. The museums and collectors were back in style to the Palais Brongniart, the beautiful venue where the fair is held. The Los-Angeles-based Getty, the British Museum of London and the Art Institute of Chicago were among the visitors eager to see and eventually curate the drawings on show. Drawings because of their fragility are rarely exhibited on a large scale. Old Masters drawings were a popular highlight of the fair and botanical drawings as well as those of gardens were featured this year at the show.

« We had more American visitors than TEFAF last week, they preferred Paris over Maastricht, partially for its cultural offerings, » noted gallery owner Antoine Laurentin referring to the Dutch fair. 

The fair organises the Week of Drawing in Paris and proposes visits to the drawing collections of some 20 museums and institutions. This year’s « week » also included several exclusive visits to gardens like the English Garden of the Petit Trianon in Versailles. Each year the Salon du Dessin hosts the prestigious contemporary drawing competition of the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Foundation. And this year the show partnered with the other leading Parisian drawing fair, Drawing Now, which offered tickets to the two shows for 25 euros instead of 32 euros. The partnership is slated to be undertaken next year as well. 

The Drawing Now art fair is held in the Carreau du Temple venue in the Marais and is dedicated to contemporary drawings. Seventy confirmed and emerging galleries from France and throughout the world participated this year. The coveted Drawing Now Award has an endowment of 15,000 euros with 5,000 for the artist and 10,000 euros to finance an exhibition in the Drawing Lab venue in Paris. This year’s recipient was the Franco-American artist Suzanne Husky whose intriguing thought-provoking works are represented by the Alain Gutharc gallery. Next year’s drawing fair is slated to be held from March 19th to March 25th 2024 with Drawing Now running from March 21st until March 24th. https://www.salondudessin.com/en/home/   https://www.drawingnowartfair.com/?lang=en. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette