Ellsworth Kelly at the Fondation Maeght: this summer’s landmark exhibition, 15 minutes from Hôtel du Clos
From 27 June to 15 November 2026, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence hosts a landmark exhibition devoted to Ellsworth Kelly — one of the defining figures of twentieth-century American art. Titled At the Edge of Water, it explores for the first time the role of water in the work of an artist celebrated for his large-scale abstract paintings and steel sculptures. Fifteen minutes from Hôtel du Clos, Saint-Paul-de-Vence has rarely been so easy to reach — or this exhibition so well suited to a stay in the Grasse hinterland.
An exhibition with deep roots in this place
What makes this show remarkable is the invisible thread connecting Ellsworth Kelly to this very site. Returning to France in 1948 on a G.I. Bill grant — Kelly had taken part in the Normandy landings — he exhibited at the Galerie Maeght in Paris before making repeated stays with the Maeght family in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. His friendship with Adrien Maeght lasted until the end of his life.
To visit At the Edge of Water at the Fondation Maeght is therefore to stand exactly where Kelly looked, walked and thought. The gardens designed by Josep Lluís Sert, the Miró Labyrinth, the Giacometti courtyard — the site itself is as much a part of the experience as the works hanging inside.
Water as a way of seeing
“In my paintings I do not invent; my ideas come from a constant investigation of the appearance of things.” This sentence of Kelly’s captures the heart of the exhibition, conceived by guest curator Éric de Chassey, one of the leading authorities on the artist.
Throughout his life, Kelly was drawn to water: Belle-Île, the Côte d’Azur, New York, the Caribbean. Faced with water, he did not set out to paint a landscape — he sought to capture perception itself: the shifting light on a surface, the chromatic range of a particular hour, movement frozen in the line of a collage or the flat plane of a canvas.
The exhibition brings together drawings, collages, paintings and sculptures born of these years of aquatic observation. A thematic approach that has never been attempted before, and that offers a fresh perspective on a body of work too often reduced to its geometric and colourful surface.
What to know before you visit
Dates: 27 June – 15 November 2026
Venue: Fondation Maeght, 623 chemin des Gardettes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Opening hours: daily 10am – 6pm / 10am – 7pm in July and August
Admission: €18 (full price) / €14 (concessions) / free for under-16s
Tickets: fondation-maeght.com
The Fondation is showing a selection from its permanent collection alongside the exhibition — more than 13,000 works, including pieces by Miró, Giacometti, Chagall and Calder. Allow a full half-day, and resist the urge to rush.
Two musical events punctuate the summer programme: on 9 July, the Orchestre National de Cannes performs an evening concert in the Giacometti Courtyard; on 5 and 6 August, producer and DJ Gilles Peterson brings two jazz nights to the Miró Labyrinth. Rare evenings that weave music and architecture together in a setting few concert halls anywhere can match.
From Hôtel du Clos: fifteen minutes away, and a world apart
Saint-Paul-de-Vence draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every summer. In July and August, the village fills quickly — queues form early, car parks reach capacity by mid-morning, and the narrow lanes become genuinely difficult to enjoy.
From Hôtel du Clos, in Le Rouret, you reach the Fondation in around fifteen minutes along hillside roads that wind through olive groves. You arrive early, ahead of the crowds. You leave when you choose. And in the evening you return to a quiet garden, a pool, and the long unhurried light of the Pays de Grasse settling over the hills.
There is also the advantage of an exhibition that runs until 15 November. There is no reason to visit at the height of August. In September or October, the village finds its rhythm again, the southern light changes character, and the galleries can be explored at whatever pace suits you.
Book your stay directly on our website — no intermediary — and ask us for suggestions on combining the exhibition with the other highlights of the hinterland. Check availability
At the Edge of Water is not simply an opportunity to discover an unexpected dimension of Ellsworth Kelly’s work. It is an invitation to experience this corner of the Côte d’Azur differently — to take the time that day-trippers rarely allow themselves. If you would like to extend the experience, the hilltop village of Gourdon, fourteen kilometres from Le Rouret, offers its own way of looking at the Provençal landscape: the gorges of the Loup below, the sea in the distance — another edge of water, seen from above.