Bilal Hamdad - Paris at the Petit Palais

A 38-year-old Algerian painter confronts his large canvases of contemporary Paris with the masterpieces of Courbet and Monet. Bilal Hamdad captures the metro, the terraces, the mixed crowds with a quiet power that rivals that of the 19th century masters. A graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2018, he composes his works from photographs taken on the spot, reconstructing fragments of urban life into monumental oil paintings. This first major museum exhibition brings together twenty canvases, including two created specifically for the Petit Palais. Hamdad paints without idealizing, bearing witness to solitude and human connections in the real city. A unique dialogue between centuries, free to access, where realistic figurative painting proves that it can still capture our time with intensity.