From March 25 to May 25, 2026, Villa Medici, home of theFrench Academy in Rome, pays tribute to the photographic production of Agnès Varda (1928-2019) with the first major retrospective dedicated to her in Italy, held on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the twinning between Paris and Rome. The exhibition, entitled Agnès Varda. Here and There, Between Paris and Rome, curated by Anne de Mondenard and Carole Sandrin, will propose an immersion in post-World War II Paris and, in particular, in the courtyard-atelier of rue Daguerre, a space of life, creation and experimentation that accompanied the artist for nearly seventy years. These Parisian years are complemented by photographs taken by Varda during her travels in Italy, from Venice to Rome, among Renaissance villas and gardens and film sets. Through places and figures that nurtured her imagination, the exhibition aims to reconstruct the journey of a prolific and deeply original artist.
Agnès Varda’s work will also be the focus of Viva Varda (March 6, 2026-February 7, 2027), an exhibition hosted by the Cineteca di Bologna ’s Modernissimo Gallery and produced in collaboration with the Cinémathèque française and Ciné-Tamaris. The exhibition will trace the entire career of the first filmmaker to receive an honorary Oscar for the entire span of her career.
The exhibition at the Villa Medici will relate the artist’s photographic and film work through a body of about 130 original prints, film excerpts, publications, documents, posters, set photographs and personal objects. Conceived by musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris and curated by Anne de Mondenard and Paris Musées, the exhibition was presented in Paris from April 9 to August 24, 2025. The project stems from more than two years of research and is based on Agnès Varda’s photographic fund and the archives of Ciné-Tamaris, the production company she founded and now directed by her children Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy.
The exhibition traces Varda’s beginnings as a photographer and her establishment, in the early 1950s, in the courtyard-atelier on rue Daguerre, transformed into a studio, photographic laboratory and site of her first exhibition in 1954. Shared later with partner Jacques Demy, a filmmaker, this space became the hub of his creative universe. Photographs and film excerpts highlight an unconventional, ironic and deeply personal look at the city of Paris and its inhabitants. Works such as Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962) and Daguerréotypes (1975) testify in particular to the artist’s constant attention to women and existences on the margins.
In dialogue with Agnès Varda’s work, the exhibition also presents works by other artists, including Giancarlo Botti, Michaële Buisson, Alexander Calder, Martine Franck, Dominique Genty, JR, Liliane de Kermadec, Michèle Laurent, Claude Nori, Laurent Sully-Jaulmes, Robert Picard, Valentine Schlegel, and Collier Schorr.
In continuity with the exhibition, The Italy of Agnès Varda, curated by Carole Sandrin, Institut pour la photographie, in co-production with the Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France, based on the photographic collection and archives of Succession Agnès Varda, will highlight the deep relationship that bound the artist to Italy through a selection of unpublished photographs taken during two stays in 1959 and 1963. In those years Varda was already established as a theatrical photographer and carried out numerous reportage assignments for the French and European press. In 1959 she traveled between Venice and its territory in search of locations for La Mélangite (ou Les Amours de Valentin), a film project that was never realized. The images document his discovery of Italy and reveal his interest in the picturesque: the Venetian views and portraits of its inhabitants fully reflect his spirit, combining the spontaneity of the shot with a strong attention to graphic effects, shadows and contrasts. At the Villa della Torre, near Verona, and at the Gardens of Bomarzo in Lazio, the artist was fascinated by the materiality and originality of the sculptures.
In May 1963 the French magazine Réalités entrusted her with a feature on Luchino Visconti, recently awarded the Palme d’Or for The Leopard. Varda traveled to Rome with three cameras: contact specimens and color images recounted her encounter with what the press called the “taciturn prince of Italian cinema.” In the same days Jean-Luc Godard shot Contempt at Titanus studios, and Varda documents the set, portraying the director as he directed Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Michel Piccoli. Fifty or so original prints from Rosalie Varda’s collection, along with archival documents and materials from the collection deposited at the Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France, tell the story of Agnès Varda’s relationship with Italy in an organic way for the first time.
Hours: Daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Tuesdays.
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| Rome's Villa Medici hosts the first major retrospective dedicated to Agnès Varda in Italy |
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