Musée d'Orsay Exhibitions & Events

What is on now, what opens next, and how the Thursday late night and the free Sundays work — with the dates that decide which day you should come.

2026 is the museum's fortieth year

The Musée d'Orsay opened in December 1986, so the programme through 2026 and into 2027 is an anniversary programme: bigger than usual, and weighted towards the artists the museum is built on. Four shows run from September into the new year, and two more open next spring — which makes autumn 2026 the strongest window for a visit in a decade, and spring 2027 worth planning around too.

Opening this autumn

Auguste Bartholdi. Liberty Enlightening the World

15 September 2026 – 31 January 2027

The sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, given a full retrospective in the museum that holds the century he worked in. Liberty Enlightening the World is the statue's formal title, and the show traces the object from drawing to colossus — the engineering, the fundraising, and the French-American politics that put it in New York harbour rather than Suez.

Bartholdi sits squarely inside Orsay's 1848–1914 remit, so this one connects directly to the sculpture you walk past in the nave.

Mary Cassatt. The Choice of Independence

6 October 2026 – 31 January 2027

The American painter who exhibited with the Impressionists and never married, staking a career on both decisions. Cassatt showed alongside Degas, Monet and Morisot, and her paintings of mothers and children were the part of Impressionism that critics were most willing to patronise and least able to dismiss.

If you have seen the Impressionist rooms on Level 5 and want the argument continued, this is the show to book.

Jenny Holzer — J'ai vu

20 October 2026 – 21 February 2027

Not a painting show. Holzer was invited to work with the museum itself: text drawn from the Orsay archive and from the period the collection covers, delivered as monumental installations, engravings cut into stone, luminous electronic displays, and projections thrown onto the historic façade after dark.

It runs through the whole building rather than one set of rooms, and the façade work means the outside of the station is part of it. Worth pairing with a Thursday late night.

Vertige. Richard Peduzzi à Orsay

6 October 2026 – 17 January 2027

A tribute to the stage designer Richard Peduzzi. His monumental scale models of the Palais Garnier and its surrounding quarter have stood in the museum since it opened in 1986 — models most visitors walk past without knowing who made them.

A small, focused show rather than a headline one — worth ten minutes if the Palais Garnier is elsewhere on your Paris itinerary.

Announced for spring 2027

Two shows are already confirmed for after the winter, both dated on the museum's own programme. Neither has opened yet, so there is nothing to review — only a date to plan around if your trip lands after mid-March.

Histoires de familles

16 March – 18 July 2027

Paintings, sculpture, photography, film and archives on how family was made in France between 1848 and 1914. Love, lineage, inheritance, rivalry and independence, from Degas to Bonnard.

Vuillard. Théâtres Intimes

23 March – 25 July 2027

The first exhibition on Édouard Vuillard in France in nearly twenty-five years. It is built around the theatre world he moved in, and how that shaped the staged, curtained look of his domestic interiors.

The two overlap from 23 March, so a spring booking after that date reaches both on one ticket.

Visiting before mid-September

There is a gap in the temporary programme between the summer closures and the autumn openings. That is not a reason to stay away — it is the quietest the building gets all year, and the permanent collection is the reason to come in the first place.

A guided tour of the permanent rooms is at its best in exactly this window: the same Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Manet, without the crowd a headline exhibition brings with it. Our collections guide sets out what sits on each level.

Already been and gone in 2026

Listed so you know what the museum has just done, and what the reviews you are reading were written about.

Every Thursday: the late night

The museum stays open until 9:45 p.m. on Thursdays, with last admission at 9 p.m. and the rooms closing from 9:15 p.m. A reduced evening ticket applies from 6 p.m.

It is the single best-kept habit at Orsay. The daytime coach groups have gone, the light through the west clock face is at its best, and the Impressionist rooms are as close to empty as they ever get. If Holzer's façade projections are running, this is when to see them.

Every month: the free first Sunday

Admission is free to everyone on the first Sunday of the month. It is also, predictably, the busiest day the museum has, and free entry does not come with a reserved slot.

Free saves the ticket and costs you the visit. If your time in Paris is short, a booked morning on a weekday is the better hour — and if you would rather not queue at all, a guided tour includes entry through a separate entrance.

Quick reference — dates to plan around

Is a temporary exhibition included in my ticket?

Entry covers the permanent collections and the temporary exhibitions, subject to availability — and the second half of that sentence is the part that matters. A heavily booked show can be full while the museum itself is not.

There is a separate cut-off at the end of the day too. Last admission to the museum is 5 p.m., to the exhibitions 5:15 p.m., and the rooms start closing at 5:30 p.m. One of the guided tours excludes temporary exhibitions from its route, so check the inclusions on the listing before you book if a specific show is your reason for coming.

Sources and where to check for updates

Every date here comes from the museum's own programme. Exhibition runs are extended and occasionally cut, so confirm before you travel:

• Musée d'Orsay — What's on, the official programme
• Musée d'Orsay — Exhibitions, current and forthcoming
• billetterie.musee-orsay.fr, official timed tickets and current rates
• Past exhibitions, the museum's own archive

Next: visiting the Musée d'Orsay for hours and entry rules, the collections level by level, and Musée d'Orsay tours for the guided options with the operators' own ratings.