Thomas Schütte: Genealogy

The exhibition traces the evolution of motifs in Thomas Schütte’s works from the 1970s to today. Featuring an exceptional collection of nearly fifty sculptures from the Pinault Collection, alongside loans from the artist and around a hundred works on paper—many being shown for the first time—it presents a non-chronological exploration of recurring forms and their transformations. It also examines their relationship to the German artist’s practice in drawing, watercolour, and printmaking.

Schütte’s figures—caricatured, at times distorted, yet always deeply moving—are central to the works in the Pinault Collection. Brought to life in clay, wax, ceramics, glass, steel, or bronze, they appear as full-length portraits or expressive heads while remaining intrinsically linked to his drawings. Balancing violence and ingenuity, intimacy and theatricality, seriousness and humour, Schütte’s distinctive artistic world has solidified his place as a key figure in contemporary art.