Surprising from the very first steps: that's the successful bet of the exhibition « Andy Warhol. The Line and the Image ». Here, no flashy silkscreens of Marilyn at the entrance. The Luxembourg Museum chooses to explore the common thread of his entire life: drawing. From the first self-portrait sketched in 1942 to the final marks made shortly before his death, the exhibition shows how drawing shaped him. Long before pop art, young Andrew Warhola earned his living as an illustrator: it was at the tip of the pencil that Warhol was born.
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Before the Stars, the Drawings
From the very first rooms, we dive into the New York years, long before the Factory. Whimsical characters, animals, everyday sketches and advertising commissions: the line is nimble, precise, mischievous.
In the 1950s, Warhol churned out work for Vogue, Glamour and Harper's Bazaar, designed window displays and record sleeves. An essential creative laboratory for understanding the giant he would become. Most importantly, the journey reminds us that a drawing was never a secondary sketch for him. Stamps, stencils, broken lines, collages: his obsession with repetition and series was already there, well before the silkscreens of Marilyn.
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View of the Andy Warhol exhibition. The Line and the Image - scenography by Véronique Dollfus © Simon Lerat for GrandPalaisRmn, 2026
Of course, you can't leave Warhol without encountering some of his greatest classics. Marilyn, Mao, the Campbell's Soup Cans and his self-portraits are all there as expected. But they take on a whole new dimension here: you discover the drawings, photographs and experiments that help you understand how these images gradually became icons.
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View of the Andy Warhol exhibition. The Line and the Image - scenography by Véronique Dollfus © Simon Lerat for GrandPalaisRmn, 2026
Warhol's Hidden Face
And what a wonderful surprise : the influence of his mother, Julia Warhola, also looms over the exhibition. Her handwriting appears in several drawings from the 1950s and sometimes becomes a true part of the image itself. A discreet yet fascinating presence, which allows us to discover another facet of how Warhol's universe was created.
Further along, the journey becomes more personal. The portraits and self-portraits show his constant play with his own face, endlessly distorted, declined and reinvented. Unmissable, the Erotica section sand the veil on his gay iconography. Long kept confidential within his inner circle, these erotic works reveal a more intimate facet of the artist, far from the carefully constructed public persona of the pope of Pop Art.
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View of the Andy Warhol exhibition. The Line and the Image - scenography by Véronique Dollfus © Simon Lerat for GrandPalaisRmn, 2026
The end of the exhibition explores his obsession with death, intensified after the attack he survived in 1968. Skulls and death symbols sit alongside softer motifs, creating a final and quite striking contrast that reminds us of the complexity of his entire universe.
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View of the Andy Warhol exhibition. The Line and the Image - scenography by Véronique Dollfus © Simon Lerat for GrandPalaisRmn, 2026
You'll leave surprised, carried away by a fresh perspective. Behind the icon-making machine stood an attentive and passionate hand that never stopped drawing. Far from yet another classic retrospective, "Andy Warhol. The Line and the Image" offers an intimate journey into the heart of creation.
A wonderful invitation to rediscover the Pop Art master from a very human angle!
Andy Warhol. The Line and the Image
Musée du Luxembourg
19 rue de Vaugirard – 6th arrondissement
September 16, 2026 to January 10, 2027
Open daily 10:30am to 7pm, late night Monday until 10pm. €14
More info