Monet–Mitchell at the Louis Vuitton Foundation – Colours, Architecture and Photography
What happens when painting meets architecture? The Louis Vuitton Foundation hosted a vibrant exhibition dedicated to Claude Monet and Joan Mitchell. I took the opportunity to photograph not only their colourful and expressive artworks, but also the bold architectural lines of Frank Gehry’s building, using a tilt-shift lens designed for architectural photography.
My visit to the Monet–Mitchell exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation was a double visual delight: on one side, the chromatic intensity of Joan Mitchell’s canvases and the atmospheric poetry of Claude Monet; on the other, the spectacular architecture of Frank Gehry.
Mitchell’s large-scale compositions—bursting with blues, yellows and reds—resonate surprisingly well with Monet’s Water Lilies. Despite the century that separates them, their brushwork seems to engage in a shared dialogue of material, light, and colour vibration.
This exhibition also provided the perfect setting to test my tilt-shift lens, an essential tool for architectural photography. By shifting the front element of the lens, it allows perspective correction, maintaining vertical lines parallel and avoiding the distortion typical of wide-angle shots taken from below.
Inside the Foundation’s glass hall and auditorium, I was able to play with geometric forms, reflections and volumes. Gehry’s architecture lends itself brilliantly to this kind of visual exploration: slanted structures, transparent walls, layered scales, and complex perspectives. The natural light at the end of the day enhanced all these visual elements beautifully.
This photo series combines the exhibited works with architectural views of the venue — a dual artistic journey: one through the painter’s eye, the other through the lens exploring spatial form.
See the exhibition and architecture photos
Sebastien Desnoulez is a photographer of architecture, landscapes and cultural spaces. His work precisely captures the form and volume of buildings, while revealing the dialogues between art, light and spatial rhythm.
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All the photos displayed on this website are copyright protected © Sebastien Desnoulez. No use allowed without written authorization.
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