The Joy of Living in the Present: Orsay Masterpieces Arrive in Tokyo

Exhibition key visual — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Samary, 1889. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée d'Orsay) / Franck Raux / distributed by AMF

Nearly 110 works from the Musée d'Orsay — including Millet's The Gleaners, Van Gogh's The Starry Night and

Gauguin's Arearea — come to Ueno for the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum's centenary.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum celebrates its 100th anniversary this autumn with an exhibition organised by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris: "Joie de Vivre: Living in the Present", running from 14 November 2026 to 28 March 2027. Presented in collaboration with Nikkei Inc., the exhibition brings together nearly 110 works — paintings, sculptures, photographs and decorative arts — from the Orsay's collections, and also marks the Paris museum's own 40th anniversary.

Three of the Orsay's most beloved masterpieces have made the journey as exceptional loans. Jean-François Millet's The Gleaners is shown in Japan for the first time in 23 years; Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, painted over the Rhône at Arles, returns after 16 years; and Paul Gauguin's Arearea is also back in Japan for the first time in 16 years.

Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857. © Musée d'Orsay, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt / distributed by AMF

In the nineteenth century, as industrialisation transformed daily life, artists turned their gaze to the world immediately around them — to work, rest, meals, music and the small happinesses of ordinary days. The exhibition follows that gaze through seven chapters, opening with a prologue devoted to dance, a celebration of life, and closing with an epilogue: "And yet, the World remains beautiful."

One chapter — "Eat Well, Work Well, Sleep Well" — honours the dignity of labour. Gustave Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers finds beauty in the strength of the Paris workmen planing a bourgeois floor, while Van Gogh's The Siesta, painted at Saint-Rémy after a composition by Millet, rests with two peasants asleep against the haystacks at noon.

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Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers, 1875. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée d'Orsay) / Franck Raux / distributed by AMF

Vincent van Gogh, The Siesta, 1889–90. © Musée d'Orsay, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt / distributed by AMF

As gaslight and then electricity remade the Parisian night, artists followed Parisians into café-concerts, cabarets and masked balls. James Tissot's Soirée captures the polish of a Belle Époque gathering, and Toulouse-Lautrec's Henri Samary — the actor's portrait that also fronts this exhibition's key visual — meets Louis Anquetin's very different portrait of the same sitter.

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James Tissot, Soirée, 1878. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée d'Orsay) / René-Gabriel Ojeda / distributed by AMF

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Samary, 1889. © GrandPalaisRmn (musée d'Orsay) / Franck Raux / distributed by AMF

The exhibition design is by Cécile Degos, the French designer behind displays for the Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the Musée d'Orsay's own Paths to Modernity in Shanghai, conceived here as an immersive, sensory journey. For Tokyo, it is a rare chance to stand before so many of the Orsay's icons at once — and to be reminded, as these artists were, that the present moment is worth savouring.

Details:

"Joie de Vivre: Living in the Present" — Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay Collections

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Ueno Park, Tokyo

14 November 2026 – 28 March 2027

Organised by the Musée d'Orsay, in collaboration with Nikkei Inc.