Colette,whose full name is Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, is one of the major writers of French literature, symbolizing the audacity of her era. As a French woman of letters, actress and journalist, she was able to impose an unprecedented female perspective on twentieth-century society, notably through the publication of her pioneering"Claudine" series of self-fictions, in which she freely evoked her bisexuality.
From September 23, 2025 to January 18, 2026, the BnF François-Mitterand is devoting an exceptional exhibition to her, to celebrate her work ahead of its time and the plurality of her worlds, as a mime, music hall dancer, actress and beautician with her own beauty salon.
Through a wide range of manuscripts and printed documents (in large numbers, as required by the BnF), correspondence, photographs and personal objects, as well as paintings, prints and audiovisual documents, the public can rediscover this audacious figure and her resolutely free pen, as well as Colette's links with the artists of her time, her affinity for cinema and her happy childhood and love of nature, which she let shine through in her works.
The exhibition aims to reveal the woman who freed herself from social shackles, which she often mocked, and who explored in her works the themes of emancipation, desire and human nature, well before our time and our contemporary questioning. All of which brings visitors closer to this inspiring woman of many faces, who opened many doors.
The second woman to be elected a member of theAcadémie Goncourt in 1945, Colette became its president between 1949 and 1954. She was also the first woman in France to receive a state funeral, marking the importance of her figure to French literature.
Dates and Opening Time
From September 23, 2025 to January 18, 2026
Location
BnF - Site François Mitterrand
Quai François Mauriac
75013 Paris 13
Route planner
Prices
Tarif réduit: €8
Plein tarif: €10
Official website
www.bnf.fr
