There are forms that cannot be named. Lines, colors and rhythms that escape reality, only to lead us back to it. This is the birth of abstraction: not a rejection of the world, but another way of inhabiting it, feeling it and questioning it.

For over a century, artists who follow this path have sought a free language, freed from all representation. They work with matter as they search for a voice, a breath. They work with inner impulse, intuition, and the invisible tension between things. Abstraction, in its multiplicity, opens up a space for pure emotion, for raw sensation and the experience of looking.

The Abstraction group pays tribute to this timeless vitality. This year, it brings together 64 works, all singular, all open. They draw on the great currents of abstract painting - geometric, lyrical, expressionist - but also unclassifiable, experimental forms that elude categorization. These works don't let themselves be confined: they move forward, they seek, they sometimes disturb, they invent.

And this, perhaps, is the strength of abstraction: not to say, but to make us feel. Not to show, but to open.

We would like to express our deep gratitude to all the artists in this group. Through their commitment, sincerity and high standards, they make the Salon d'Automne a living place for dialogue, sharing and transmission.

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE LÉVÊQUE
Head of Abstraction group

CHRISTOPHE BADANI
Coordinator

Naive art, the art of the modern primitives, the art of the self-taught, folk art, rural art, undisciplined art, whatever you want to call it, has its admirers because it often highlights the social aspect of our society.

Naive art can be found in villages and cities, among a growing number of sensitive, rebellious individuals who are also committed and have a message to convey. It is not just a popular art tradition, and while it concerns workers, peasants and employees, it also originates among executives and notables who have their say in this rapidly changing world. This undisciplined art is a unifying force that breaks down community boundaries.

Whatever social group they belong to, the artists who will be representing naive art throughout this Autumn 2025 show, whether they live in the countryside, in a factory or in the city, have in common a world of dreams and freedom.

CLAUDINE LOQUEN
President of the Naive Art section

CHROMATICS is a group like no other. A free space, an open-air manifesto, a concentration of pure light and fiery pigments. Here, color reigns supreme, and it does not whisper—it shouts, it dances, it pounds, it breathes.

For this 4th edition, I have brought together more than 50 artists— plus 7 sculptors—all chosen with care, rigor, and instinct. What am I looking for? Works that stand out through color, that vibrate, that take risks, that dare to compose as one dares to tell the truth. I want neither lukewarmness nor domesticated gray: I want pulsation, unstable balance, breath.

CHROMATICS is the birthplace of chromatism, a movement in motion. One word, one world, one idea: to make color the primary language, a sensitive and wild alphabet. And the public is beginning to understand this. The press is talking about it. The word is spreading. It is alive. And this year, we are exhibiting at Place de la Concorde, on 4,000 m² around the obelisk. Nothing less. The heart of Paris, for a heart that beats very strongly. The section shines, overflows, stretches, asserts itself. It becomes what it was meant to be: a chromatic shock, a collective energy, a laboratory in broad daylight.

CHROMATICS is a proud, free, untamed group. It is a bath of light, a slap in the face for the retinas, a feast for the optic nerves. It is a colorful love at first sight. And this is only the beginning.

MICHÈLE ANSERMET PAPADOPOULOS
Head of Chromatics group

This group brings together 70 artists whose work is rooted in a strong desire to express themselves. Some of their creations are rooted in the heritage of Expressionism, while others approach it to release a more contemporary version, using colour, gesture and form... All the artists share a strong commitment to transmitting an emotion, an energy, an idea, a personal vision, without worrying about codes or conventions.

The ‘Expression Libre’ group highlights these open, vibrant practices, where each work is a statement, a look, an impulse...!

In this assumed freedom of expression, art becomes a vector of intensity, sometimes a cry, often a song, always a living presence.

VICTOR SASPORTAS
Head of « Expression libre » group

"My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there"
J.M.W. Turner

Is painting really today a courageous act, affirming our refusal to submit to the sirens of one-track thinking, who for over a century, have believed they could declare the clinical death of figuration? Figuration has never been so alive.

Once again this year, the artists in the Figuration group are proving this by the diversity of their sensibilities, approaches and talents.

Please come and join us to discover the diversity of their views and compositions, which have a common denominator: painting reality by observing the world around us.

DIDIER THIRION
Head of Figuration group

Heritage and Innovation: two dynamics meet.

Art is a bridge between past and future. In this group, the artists explore the legacy of the masters while pushing back the boundaries of the pictorial medium. Each painting bears witness to a continuity and a rupture where tradition and modernity intertwine.

Is innovation a continuity or a break with heritage?

The artists on show are paying tribute to the techniques and aesthetics of the past, while reinterpreting them. Each work is part of a dialogue with the past.

Innovation is embodied here in the boldness of their artistic approaches. These painters transform memory into a driving force for creation, inventing new codes while at the same time anchoring themselves in an artistic continuity.

By bringing together these complementary visions, this section illustrates a deep-seated conviction: art never ceases to renew itself when it draws on its own heritage to better free itself from it. Heritage and innovation are not opposites, but interdependent, shaping together the face of contemporary creation.

STEFAN BEIU
Head of « Héritage & innovation » group

True to its pioneering spirit, the Salon d’Automne has embodied the creative freedom and visionary audacity that have shaped modern and contemporary art for over a century.

The Imaginaires group, founded by the master Jean-Pierre Alaux —a leading figure and ardent defender of creators— celebrates the centenary of his birth in 2025. His legacy, carried on with consistency and sensitivity by Michel Dankner for over thirty years, continues to promote the original spirit.

A place of choice for artists inspired by surrealism, symbolism and the art of the imagination, this group remains a territory of renewal, where new forms of visual and poetic thought are constantly being invented.

MICHEL DANKNER
Head of Imaginaires group

CARLOS SABLÓN
Coordinator

Art does not reproduce the visible, it makes visible.
Paul Klee

The Synthèse group is distinguished by its desire to bring together artists whose work lies between figuration and abstraction, emphasising emotion and poetry rather than an explicit representation of the subject: we find different sensitive and poetic currents represented at the Salon d'Automne, works that respond to each other and harmonise to work together in a rhythmic, musical display, where calm and accents alternate.

The techniques are varied: oil paint, acrylic, collage, mixed media, fresco. Saying with silences, colours and shapes, or simply suggesting...

And then, as every year, the artists meet up to share their experiences, doubts and hopes.

I would like to thank Cécile Valtat for her insight and assistance in preparing for the exhibition.

CATHERINE SÉVÉRAC
Head of Synthèse group

CÉCILE VALTAT
Coordinator

Where other sections bring artists together around a common theme, the Variations group deliberately chooses diversity as its founding principle. It reflects the richness and complexity of the contemporary art scene. It combines works from well-established movements with others that are more unique, sometimes described as “unclassifiable.” The result is a broad, dynamic, ever-changing vision of contemporary creation. Each new edition of the group offers a snapshot of today's constantly evolving artistic landscape. This open approach allows innovative trends to emerge.

In 2025, the selected artists powerfully embody this plurality: their works explore a broad spectrum ranging from figurative to abstract, covering all the nuances in between. The mediums and techniques used are equally varied, affirming total freedom of expression. The strength of the group lies in this diversity, which stimulates curiosity, provokes fruitful confrontations, and invites each artist to take a fresh look at their own practice.

ROBERT MAUREL
Head of Variations group

JÉRÔME SPIESSER
Coordinator

As part of a reflective and continuous approach following the Autumn Salon of 2024, the artist opens doors to the unknown, inviting the viewer to explore new territories, both visual and emotional. In doing so, the artworks become a true laboratory of ideas.This quest for the unexplored is expressed through the use of new mediums—innovative technologies, performances, digital arts, and more. Contemporary artists position themselves as researchers, explorers of the unknown, forging untrodden paths. Their approach resembles that of a laboratory, where experimentation and hypothesis testing occur without the need for immediate answers. The "Environmental Art" section brings together 70 artists, each a unique creative individual with their own techniques and visions, yet all working toward a shared direction. The diversity of mediums is an essential asset, weaving a genuine symphony of ideas that complement and reinforce one another, much like a grand orchestra. This metaphor of the orchestra also reflects a way of conceiving artistic trends: while each artist retains their individuality, together they form a harmonious whole. This diversity of expression gives rise to a collective work that allows for multiple interpretations, reflecting the boundless richness of human perspectives.To conclude, let us echo the words of the Autumn Salon 2024: we are, and must remain, the bearers of talent at the heart of cultural diversity. This is a fundamental principle that compels us to become, and to remain, facilitators of creative brilliance.

JACK DUFOUR
Head of the Environmental Art section

For its second year, the Unknown Worlds section of the Salon d’Automne has expanded, welcoming forty-three artists. This edition, in addition to classical techniques, introduces new ones and explores unprecedented themes. The artists blend traditional craftsmanship with innovations, offering works that invite viewers to step off the beaten path.

The section remains true to its objective: to highlight the diversity and richness of perspectives. The exhibited works tell stories inspired by the cultures, memories, or dreams of their creators. They present real or imagined landscapes, poetic visions, and unique representations that resonate with the intimate experience of each visitor.

This section shows how art brings people together and creates connections across generations and borders. The artists gathered here intersect heritage and experimentation, demonstrating that artistic expression is always evolving.

Unknown Worlds invites us to curiosity and openness. This section encourages exploration, wonder.

GAbO
Head of « Mondes Inconnus » section

For its eleventh edition, Myths and Singularity presents unconventional works far removed from any academicism, made with materials that go off the beaten track as well as new media and popular handicraft sometimes scorned, such as tricotin, macrame, embroidered canvas…. Visceral works far removed from any formal aestheticism, instinctive creations that reconnect with the hand of a child to provoke the wink of an eye, a bit of naivety, but also to spew out our fears and our pain. Works that may attract, challenge or repulse the viewer. A festival of colours that can tell stories, unfiltered, and enable us to revisit Myths or create a myth or a singularity of our own.

You are invited by 47 artists from all over the world to wander around this chimerical space. Singular artists who remain more than ever « conveyers of magic » (Joseph Campbell).

PATRICIA BERQUIN
Head of the « Myths et Singularity » section

This year's Sculpture section is particularly remarkable for its diversity in terms of materials, imagination and original themes.

The sculptures will be displayed in various sections of painting, engraving, drawing, photography, digital art and environmental art.

They have been chosen by the section heads, according to the works present in their division, in order to achieve a harmony likely to create a relational environment between images and volumes.

This may inspire collectors to imagine this décor in their living spaces.

FRANÇOISE FRUGIER
Head of Sculpture section

Since the earliest artistic expressions, humans have sought to capture and express the complexity of the world around them.

Engraving, in particular, stands out for its magical ability to transform material into a work of art, blending technique and creativity.

Each artist can express their unique personality and style. Engravers use a variety of tools, such as drypoints, burins, and etching needles, to work with different materials such as metal and wood.

These techniques allow for the creation of visual effects and surfaces rich in detail.

But engraving is not just a matter of technique; it also follows precise rules that give it its essence and originality.

In the Engraving section of the Salon d'Automne, the selection of works on display allows visitors to discover the richness and diversity of this art form.

JEAN-PIERRE TANGUY
Head of the Engraving section

This year, the Drawing section is asserting its identity.

Technical mastery is the primary criterion for selection, highlighting the purity of the pencil stroke and the powerful symbolism of form. This approach emphasizes the expressive power of the medium, revealing the richness of an art form in which every line tells a story.

The new artistic direction reflects our desire to return to the very essence of drawing, when line, form, and gesture are enough to express the full power of a work.

Pencil, charcoal, pen, pastel, Indian ink...

Each technique will reveal its full richness, through subtle textures or more marked contrasts: from radical black and white to nuanced color, from free and instinctive lines to elaborate compositions, from realistic expression to abstract language, this edition will welcome artists who, by pushing the boundaries of drawing, reaffirm its fundamental place in contemporary creation.

The Drawing section of the 2025 Salon d'Automne celebrates this discipline in its most essential form: an art of the eye and the hand, where modeling and contours sculpt thought and emotion.

For "drawing is not the form, it is the way of seeing the form."
– Edgar Degas

VÉRONIQUE ALMARINE & ANTOINE AIZIER
Head of Drawing section

This section invites visitors on a journey through the richness and diversity of photography. It brings together artists from all corners of the globe, united by a shared passion for the image. Here, traditional processes meet contemporary techniques of digital imaging and postmodern retouching. This dialogue between eras reveals the permanence of the artistic gaze, regardless of technological advances.

Large formats and small, intimate works sit side by side, inviting the viewer to alternate between immersion and contemplation. The scenography plays on contrasts: the figurative and the abstract, sharpnessand poetic blurring, the silence of a desert landscape and the tension of a close-up portrait.

A showcase of techniques, it is a testament to the diversity of perspectives, sensibilities and stories. Each image is a door opening onto a world, a moment, an emotion. Together, they compose a vibrant fresco of photography past and present.

ANNE ROULANT
Heads of the Photography section

CHRISTINE LEEPINLAUSKY
Coordinator

From Paris to the world: a decade of encounters, borderless creations and the extraordinary!

Ten years ago, driven by a sincere passion for new artistic languages, the members of the Board of Directors created a Digital Art section within the Salon d'Automne. All of them believed in the idea that digital art had its place in the great historical salons. They were the true initiators of this adventure - art history owes them a debt of gratitude... Thanks to their support, this section was born, driven from the outset by a vision that was open, curious, and resolutely forward-looking: avant-garde !
Since then, more than a hundred artists from all over the world—Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the United States—have exhibited their works here, rich in creativity and daring. This diversity, this energy, this effervescence have gradually built up a collective influence. Together, we have seen digital art assert itself, evolve, be recognised and highly rewarded.

I have supported this section from its very beginnings, with the zeal of a builder and the faith of an artist. I have devoted immense energy to it, imagining and realising ambitious projects, and collaborating with major figures in the art world to contribute to its aura. This adventure has shone through, thanks to a genuine collective alchemy. The artists, through their talent, have given this section its strength and legitimacy: I'm infinitely grateful to them.

I'm humbled by how far we've come, and deeply inspired by the hope that this wonderful dynamic will continue to live on, reinventing itself and opening up other possibilities for the digital arts!

ISABELLE SCHMITT
Head of the « Digital Art » section

Artists’ books - rare books !

Encounters of a few words handwritten, typed, composed, printed and of forms born from a fleeting thought or a laborious choice patiently built on the edge of days.

Gazes drawn to a work of exception with images drawn, painted, etched in shadow or lifted in relief, cut, folded... to the touch of materials : rag paper, soft and delicate fibers, rustic fabrics, cardboard, leather, steel... and that ineffable attraction to pages or volumes creates, then, an exchange between the artist’s book and the reader... and if text and image become one, the book becomes a rare work in the fullness of shared meaning.

Concorde ! A harmonious union beetween several people. It comes alive in the living place at the Salon d’Automne.

MICHEL BOUCAUT
President of the Artists’ Books section

CORINNE MARIOTTE
Coordinator

Translated by Véronique Boucaut

現在も継続している戦争・紛争や社会不安がなくなることを祈っています。

アートには人から感動や共感を引き出す力や人を愛する力創造力が
あります。
芸術には、差別や格差はありません。作品の中の光に触れるとき、
人は感性を刺激され、作品と共に美と創造の中にいます。創作活動
の意義は、今までより一層強くなり、芸術の本質を捉え直し、表現
する必要があります。国境を越えた作品やアーティスト同士のつな
がりがますます重要です。

日本からも多くの作品がサロン・ドトーヌに集結しました。社会の
危機に屈せず、今、そして世界を豊かにする作品は、アーティスト
の創作への情熱の証しです。

アートを盛り上げようと尽力されているサロン・ドトーヌ協会の皆
さま、そして会を率いるレヴェック ジャン=クリストフ会長へ深く
感謝申し上げると共に、本サロンの開催を心よりお祝い申し上げま
す。

本サロンの作品と作家が光となり全世界人々に愛と勇気を与え、芸
術文化の発展と平和の礎となるものと信じております。

代表 馬郡 文平
欧州美術クラブ
JIAS日本国際美術家協会

BUMPEI MAGORI
President of the Club des Amis de l’Europe et des Arts
President of the Japan International Artists Society

As in previous sessions, we are delighted and proud to welcome the “Amplitude” section. For several years, the Salon d’Automne has cultivated strong and fruitful ties with our German and Polish partners, fostering rich and dynamic artistic exchanges.

Thanks to this cooperation and the “Emballage - Envelope and Baggage of Life” project, French artists once again had the opportunity this year to exhibit their works alongside talented artists from European associations in: Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic. Building on these successes, we hope to expand these collaborations by exploring new perspectives.

This dynamic partnership is a source of mutual enrichment for us and an essential lever for promoting European artistic creation in all its diversity. For its part, the Salon d’Automne, through Victor Sasportas, Delegate for European Projects, extends its warmest thanks to: Mr. Georg Schnitzler, BBK Bonn, Professor Damien Pietrek, Z PAP Okreg Katowice, Ms. Melanie Mertens for all their work, and to all the local exhibition organizers…!

These exhibitions allow us to come together in art and experience moments of sharing and exchange. Our partnership is strengthening and will continue to grow.

GEORG SCHNITZLER
Co-chair BBK Bonn

VICTOR SASPORTAS
European Projects Officer

MIKA ICHIKAWA ABOUT HERSELF

As a child, she was looking for calm sea (Seto Inland Sea), and by then there was not yet a big bridge (Seto Ohashi Bridge opened in april 1988).
Her father and mother ran a small fish shop. At that time, her parents often took her to the “hama”(fresh fish market) and she kept looking for the brightly colored fish on display. She has never forgotten the dazzling glow of the sea and colorful fish from”hama”.
Even now, each landscape has been vivid in her mind forever.

ミカイチカワ自身について
（原風景）
子供の頃、目の前には静かな海があり（瀬戸内海）そしてまだ、アノ大きな橋がなか
った頃（瀬戸大橋 1988.4開通）家は小さな鮮魚店を営んでいました。その頃よく親に連れられて「はま」（鮮魚市場）に行き、私は並べられた色鮮やか鮮 魚達をずーっとずーっといつまでも眺めて おりました。
あの時の海の眩い輝き「はま」で見た色と りどりの魚達は、今でも私の中に鮮明に残 っております。