Séraphine Louis : de Senlis et sans rivale

Exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, 31 October 2026 – 12 April 2027

A major figure in 20th-century painting, Séraphine Louis (1864–1942), known as Séraphine de Senlis, developed a unique body of work in which flowers, trees and fruit unfold into fantastical visions. Although she is the only woman associated with the ‘Modern Primitives’, the artist defies categorisation. Operating on the fringes of the 20th-century avant-garde movements, she developed a visual language characterised by remarkable formal freedom, whose expressive power and inventiveness continue to astonish.

Bringing together more than 90 works out of the hundred or so currently catalogued, this book is the catalogue for the first major international retrospective dedicated to Séraphine de Senlis. It sheds light on the many facets of her work and offers a fresh perspective on a painter now recognised as one of the great innovators of the art of her time.