About
“Drawing is the first art of childhood. It is also the first known art of our prehistoric ancestors. Long looked down on in favour of painting and pushed aside, it has made a strong comeback in recent years, in art schools, galleries and museums. It was time to give this art its full scope and devote to it an annual festival, both popular and demanding.”
The Festival du Dessin was founded in Arles in 2023 on the initiative of Vera Michalski, president of the Libella publishing group and founder of the Jan Michalski Foundation, and Frédéric Pajak, writer, draughtsman and head of the publishing house Les Cahiers dessinés. Its third edition drew 159,000 visits.
The fourth edition, from April 18 to May 17, 2026, is headlined by the group exhibition Viva l’Italia!, brought together with the help of the Collezione Ramo and the William Cuendet Foundation & Atelier de Saint-Prex.
Some forty solo exhibitions bring together renowned artists such as Fernand Léger, Jean-Michel Alberola, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Germaine Richier and Louis Soutter, alongside lesser-known names such as Léon Bongrain. Particular attention goes to Ceija Stojka, a Roma artist who survived the death camps, and to two 17th- and 18th-century draughtsmen of startling modernity from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Nicolas Lagneau and Jean-Jacques Lequeu.
Young people have their place too, with The children of Arles exhibit and work by students from the schools of decorative arts in Paris, Florence and Athens. Honorary president: Éric Cantona.