Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
At the Grand Palais in Paris, a rare exhibition invites visitors to step inside the making of history. D’un seul souffle (In a Single Breath) presents the monumental preparatory works behind French artist Claire Tabouret’s new stained-glass windows for Notre-Dame de Paris, offering an unprecedented look at a contemporary project that is still very much in motion.
Unfolding inside Galerie 10.2, the exhibition showcases monumental, 7-meter-tall (almost 30-foot-tall) paper maquettes that will eventually be translated into stained glass for the six chapels along the south aisle of Notre-Dame’s nave. Tabouret was selected in late 2024, in collaboration with the renowned Atelier Simon-Marq, to desgin the new windows as part of the cathedral’s post-fire restoration. Rather than unveiling finished objects, D’un seul souffle focuses on process. Here the public will witness the scale, labor, and experimentation behind the work before it is permanently installed in stone and glass.
The exhibition’s title references breath as both a physical and symbolic force. It echoes the biblical theme of Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit, chosen for the windows, as well as the act of breath itself: the wind, the voice, and the human presence that animates both painting and glass. This idea quietly shapes the experience of the show, where movement, repetition, and rhythm replace traditional religious iconography.
To create the designs, Tabouret turned to monotype printing, a technique she has practiced for years. Working with ink on transparent plexiglass, she paints images in reverse before transferring them onto thick paper using a press. Each window is composed of dozens of individual printed sections, including figures, landscapes, and abstract motifs that are assembled into towering, collage-like compositions. The result is work that feels simultaneously precise and fluid, structured yet visibly handmade.
Color plays a critical role in these works. In keeping with the architectural and spiritual constraints of Notre-Dame, Tabouret developed a palette that is vivid but carefully balanced, allowing light to remain luminous and diffuse rather than be dominated by a single hue. The compositions reference the movement of wind, fire, and collective bodies. These visual metaphors of unity and transformation are subtly reflected in the cathedral’s 19th-century stained glass.
Within the Grand Palais, visitors move among the towering paper works as if stepping into the space where decisions are still being made. Sketches, stencils, notes, and tools from the Atelier Simon-Marq further emphasize that this is a living process, one shaped by collaboration between contemporary art and centuries-old craft.
By opening up this intermediate stage, D’un seul souffle reframes how monumental public art is experienced. It highlights the vulnerability and experimentation that precedes permanence, and it allows viewers to connect with a historic commission on a human scale. Long before light filters through glass inside Notre-Dame, it passes first through paper, ink, and the artist’s hand.
At the Grand Palais in Paris, visitors are invited to witness the process behind Tabouret’s monumental stained-glass windows for Notre-Dame.
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Various sketches on paper made by the artist for the 6 stained glass windows of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Nathan Thelen, 2024)
Using monotype printing on plexiglass, the artist transfers dozens of printed sections onto paper to assemble her towering designs.
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Photo: © Simon Lerat for the Grand Palais Rmn, Paris, 2025
Visitors move among sketches, stencils, and tools, gaining an unprecedented sense of the labor and experimentation behind monumental public art.
Model, detail of the bay for the Sainte-Geneviève chapel, 2025. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Marten Elder, 2025)
Claire Tabouret, Atelier Simon Marq work in progress on the model of the bay for the Sainte-Geneviève chapel, 2025. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Marten Elder, 2025)
Maquette, detail of the bay for the Saint-Paul-Chen chapel. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Marten Elder, 2025)
Maquette, detail of the bay for the Saint-Paul-Chen chapel. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Marten Elder, 2025)
Maquette, detail of the bay for the Saint-Paul-Chen chapel. (Photo: © Claire Tabouret / photo Marten Elder, 2025)
Portrait of Claire Tabouret in front of a sketch of the bay for the Sainte-Clothilde chapel. (Photo: © Kaleb Marshall, 2025)
