The Best Photography Galleries In Paris

Anyone who has spent hours battling their way through the crowds of Paris’ infinite and overwhelming museums will tell you it’s not always the ideal way to explore the cultural scene, particularly if you are only staying for a short time. Instead, forget the classics and hop under the radar with our guide to the city’s top photo galleries.

1. The Jeu de Paume

Museum, Art Gallery

The Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume showcases the work of photographers and mixed-media artists

At the heart of the Jardin des Tuileries, lies the national galleries of the Jeu de Paume. Originally a tennis court, (known as jeu de paume in French) it was converted into a museum in 1909, which during World War II was used to store Nazi plunder, including huge collections of masterpieces owned by Jewish families like the Rothschilds and the Bernheims.

After the war and until 1986, it housed all the great impressionist works until they were moved to the Musée d’Orsay. The Jeu de Paume today is renowned for exhibiting all forms of imagery (photography, cinema, video, etc) and little-known as well as established photographers featuring Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Ai Wei Wei, and Berenice Abbott, among others.

2. Maison européenne de la Photographie

Museum, Library

The Maison européenne de la Photographie, also known as MEP, might be one of the best galleries in Paris dedicated to photography. Not only do they organize retrospective exhibitions but they also exhibit modern and emerging photographers such as Martin Parr or Larry Clark all year long. The MEP’s library is worth stopping by since it offers a very rare collection of first editions published by galleries. And if you are lucky enough to be in Paris in November, do not miss the Mois de la Photo(Month of Photography) organized there.

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

‘The camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity’. Henry Cartier Bresson’s sentiment is perfectly manifested in this eponymous foundation, inaugurated in 2003 and organized in his spirit and as as a tribute to his work. Housed in an studio built by Molinié in 1912, the building is high and narrow but luminous, and welcomes pieces from vintage collections, including Henri Cartier-Bresson and Martine Franck‘s archives.

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2, Impasse Lebouis, 75014 Paris, +33 1 56 80 27 00

3. The BAL

Restaurant, French

The BAL has experienced multiple incarnations: as a vibrant dancehall in the Roaring Twenties, as France’s largest betting shop for horse races after World War II, and most recently as a provocative photographic space. Opened in 2006, visitors come here to explore documentary works that have social and political implications. They are currently featuring Samuel Gratacap and an exhibition called A Handful of Dust.