‘Fragile Beauty’: Contained in 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.

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Widely thought to be one of many world’s foremost non-public 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 by means of 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 skill 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 mentioned when the exhibition was first introduced in London.

That ardour was quickly picked up and shared together 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 by means of 5 themes — need, celeb, vogue, reportage and the affirmation of identification. It reveals how pictures can doc non-public 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 modern 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 by means of trendy 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 embrace Associated Press photographer Ethan Swope’s pictures 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 might draw guests by means of the door, Fragile Beauty is finally a celebration of images itself. The exhibition highlights the medium’s skill to seize vulnerability, need, resilience and identification, whereas documenting the folks and occasions which have formed the trendy world.

Discover the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris

The exhibition is hosted by Jeu de Paume, certainly one of 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 important reflection on the function pictures play in society.

For images lovers, “Fragile Beauty” gives the uncommon likelihood to see one of many world’s most necessary non-public collections introduced collectively in a single exhibition. But the present is equally compelling for anybody desirous about tradition, historical past or modern society.

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