Henry Taylor

Published for Henry Taylor: Where Thoughts Provoke, the artist’s first retrospective in France, this richly illustrated exhibition catalog and monograph surveys four decades of Taylor’s career through approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, and installations.

The exhibition is presented at the Musée national Picasso-Paris from April 8 through September 6, 2026. Known especially for his portraits and depictions of Black American life, Taylor combines personal experience, collective memory, contemporary history, and references to earlier art. His expressive, loose brushwork moves between portraiture, everyday observation, political history, and reinterpretations of works by artists including David Hammons, Philip Guston, and Pablo Picasso.

Rather than treating Taylor’s portraits in isolation, the publication places them within the broader development of his practice and his sustained exploration of the human condition. The selection traces the evolution of an artist whose subjects range from family members and friends to historical figures and people encountered in everyday life.

Published with the Musée Picasso, the volume includes an overarching essay on Taylor’s career by curator Joanne Snrech, an interview by Cécile Debray, an essay by art historian Elvan Zabunyan on representations of American history in Taylor’s work, a text by Laura Hoptman, and a chronology by François Dareau.