Fragile Beauties: Elton John's Photo Collection on Display at the Jeu de Paume

The Jeu de Paume unveils a curated selection of photographs from Elton John and David Furnish’s collections. The exhibition is open from June 12 to September 27, 2026.

Rocket Man, Your Song, Don't Go Breaking My Heart... Elton John is globally renowned for his songs. But did you know the artist is also passionate about art and photography? The Jeu de Paume, in Paris, invites us to explore a selection of photographs from Sir Elton John's private collection and that of his husband, David Furnish.

The exhibition Fragile Beauties, running from June 12 to September 27, 2026, gathers hundreds of photographs dating from the 1950s to today. The couple’s collection totals more than 7,000 images, encompassing a wide array of subjects and approaches: black-and-white and color, artistic and documentary shots, works by famous artists as well as lesser-known names.

This journey also reveals something about Elton John and David Furnish themselves: their gaze, their tastes, their distinctly personal way of building a collection. And through it, a broad history of photography modern and contemporary, the major events of the past few years, and evolving artistic and social movements...

From the Black Panthers movement to on-set images, from the fires of Los Angeles to portraits of stars, the collection spans eras and subjects, covering a broad spectrum of photographic art. The journey is divided into chapters — fashion, desire, photojournalism, celebrities — which give the whole thing a distinctive rhythm.

This is also an opportunity to bring together in one place signed prints by Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Harley Weir, and Herman Leonard. Nan Goldin is also in the spotlight, with an installation featuring 149 prints from the Thanksgiving series.

The staging of the space plays with walls that are sometimes chrome, sometimes painted in color, giving the visit real momentum. One could have wished it went even further—especially to make the black-and-white photographs truly sing. And let's be honest: the majority of the displayed images are small to medium in scale, even though the collection is brimming with large prints. Showcasing more of them would likely have disrupted the subtle linear rhythm of the route.

For the love of photography—or simply to glimpse another facet of Elton John and David Furnish—the Jeu de Paume exhibition is well worth a detour this summer in Paris.

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