REQUIRED READING:
SPRING SUMMER 26
For Spring Summer 2026, our reading list follows the same chaptered rhythm as the collection itself. Rooted in spaces shaped by maker's past, and informed by sculpture, modernist design, and the documentary gaze, these works sit behind the season.
01. RURAL — RAYMOND DEPARDON
Depardon’s photographs observe life with restraint and clarity, capturing the poetry of the everyday without embellishment. In Rural, his lens moves through agricultural landscapes and working lives, attentive to posture, rhythm, and place.
02. CAMILLE CLAUDEL — ANNE DELBÉE
Anne Delbée’s portrait of Camille Claudel traces the life of a sculptor whose work reshaped the language of sculpture through emotion, physicality, and devotion to form. Working within the artistic circles of Paris, and in close dialogue with Auguste Rodin, Claudel brought a new intensity and sensitivity to the medium, carving movement, vulnerability, and tension into stone and bronze. Her influence endures in the way sculpture came to hold gesture and interior life, marking her as a pivotal figure in the evolution of modern French sculpture.
03. HAUTE COUTURE EMBROIDERY: THE ART OF LESAGE — PALMER WHITE
Lee discovered Haute Couture Embroidery: The Art of Lesage during her travels in Paris in her 20s, a chance encounter that has remained with her ever since. This book honours the heritage of Lesage embroidery, an atelier synonymous with Parisian haute couture. Each stitch reflects generations of knowledge passed from hand to hand, rooted in patience, precision, and care. It offers a window into the French tradition of craftsmanship, where embellishment is not excess, but an expression of discipline, history, and respect for material.
04. CHARLOTTE PERRIAND: INVENTING A NEW WORLD — PERNETTE PERRIAND, JACQUES BARSAC
Charlotte Perriand’s work embodies a distinctly French modernism, one that balances innovation with everyday use. Her designs were shaped by life in Paris, its apartments, cafés, and collective rhythms. This book traces a philosophy of living where design serves daily life, guided by an enduring belief in thoughtful, functional beauty.
05. RODIN / ARP — FONDATION BEYELER
This study brings together the work of Auguste Rodin and Jean Arp, tracing two approaches to form that emerged from the European, and particularly French, artistic tradition. Rodin’s expressive human figures sit alongside Arp’s softer abstractions, revealing a shared concern with movement, volume, and balance. Their dialogue reflects a broader Parisian conversation between the body, space, and modern thought.
06. THE YEARS — ANNIE ERNAUX
Annie Ernaux’s collective memoir traces postwar French life through memory, objects, and social change. Moving between the personal and the shared, The Years captures the rituals of daily existence, from interiors and clothing to language and gesture. It offers a portrait of France lived from the inside, where time is marked not by milestones, but by accumulation and observation.
07. WAYS OF SEEING — JOHN BERGER
Though not French, John Berger’s text has long been embraced within European cultural discourse. His reflections on art, images, and perception resonate deeply with Parisian intellectual life, encouraging a slower, more critical way of looking. Ways of Seeing invites attention to context, history, and power, principles that continue to shape how art, objects, and culture are understood.
