‘Fragile Beauty’: Infacet the images assortment Elton John spent 30 years constructing

After a profitable debut at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection has opened at Paris’ Jeu de Paume arts centre.

Widely thought to be one of many world’s foremost personal images collections, the exhibition presentsmore than 300 pictures chosen from 7,000 works gathered by the couple over 30 years.

Some critics have described the present as a passage via time that tracing the event of images from the Fifties to the current day.

Sir Elton John started amassing images in 1991, drawn to the medium’s capability to seize actuality with unmatched honesty.

“I love painters, I love artwork, I collect paintings, but for me nothing speaks the truth more like a photograph – and David Hockney would kill me for saying that but I’m sorry, I’m right,” he stated when the exhibition was first offered in London.

That ardour was quickly picked up and shared along with his husband. “When Elton and I met, the first night down here in Windsor, one of the things we immediately found we had in common was our love of photography,” David Furnish recalled. “I had the coffee table books of the photographs and Elton actually had some of the photographs.”

Produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Paris exhibition explores images via 5 themes — need, movie star, style, reportage and the affirmation of identification. It reveals how photos can doc personal lives in addition to social and political change.

The exhibition options works by greater than 90 worldwide photographers and gives a sweeping overview of contemporary and up to date images. Among them are Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, Nan Goldin, Diane Arbus, William Klein, Ryan McGinley, Ai Weiwei, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, alongside pictures by Eve Arnold, Herman Leonard, Harley Weir, Susan Meiselas and lots of others.

A journey via fashionable images

The exhibition additionally explores momentous occasions in historical past and portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Doris Day, jazz legend Chet Baker and charts the Civil Rights motion, the rise of LGBTQ+ communities, AIDS activism and political protest.

More latest works embody Associated Press photographer Ethan Swope’s photos of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in 2025. Together, they present how images continues to seize defining moments of our time.

Although Elton John’s identify could draw guests via the door, Fragile Beauty is finally a celebration of images itself. The exhibition highlights the medium’s capability to seize vulnerability, need, resilience and identification, whereas documenting the individuals and occasions which have formed the trendy world.

Discover the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris

The exhibition is hosted by Jeu de Paume, one in all France’s main establishments devoted to images and the transferring picture. Located within the Tuileries Gardens in central Paris, the museum explores images, movie and digital artwork, and has established itself as an area for essential reflection on the function photos play in society.

For images fanatics, “Fragile Beauty” gives the uncommon probability to see one of many world’s most vital personal collections introduced collectively in a single exhibition. But the present is equally compelling for anybody serious about tradition, historical past or up to date society.

Fragile Beauty is on at Jeu de Paume in Paris till 24 September, 2026.