Paris comes to San Francisco this fall with Eternal Paris: Photographing the City of Light, a new photography exhibition opening September 5 at the Legion of Honor.
Featuring nearly 50 photographs from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco collection, the exhibition explores how photographers of the 19th and early 20th centuries helped shape the enduring image of Paris — its monuments, streets, neighborhoods and everyday life — while documenting a city undergoing profound transformation.
The exhibition brings together works by photographers including Édouard Baldus, Charles Marville, André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, Louis Émile Durandelle, Eugène Atget and Brassaï, from early views of Parisian landmarks to images of the aftermath of the Paris Commune and Atget’s remarkable documentation of a city entering the modern age.
Eternal Paris is curated by Sally Martin Katz, Curator of Photography at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, whom MerciSF interviewed last year about her Franco-American journey, her years studying at the Sorbonne and her passion for French photography.
For Francophiles and photography lovers alike, it is a chance to rediscover the City of Light through the photographers who helped create the Paris that still lives in our collective imagination.
Eternal Paris: Photographing the City of Light
Dates: September 5, 2026 – February 28, 2027
Address: Legion of Honor Museum – Lincoln Park 100 34th Avenue (at Clement Street) – San Francisco
Tickets: Included with general museum admission / Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
