These are images of happiness. Two women lying on the deck of a white yacht, seen from above. An emerald green convertible parked in front of a Chanel storefront. A girl on a vespa, arms raised toward the sea. Kerry Wheeler has built, in just a few years, an immediately recognizable aesthetic: perpetual vacation, late-afternoon light, effortless glamour. His large-format prints fill the first rooms of the exhibition and set the tone. On his website, he describes them as intimate stories, “sun-soaked, and timeless.” They are also images that transport the viewer. The title “Summer with the Wheelers” is, above all, an invitation.

The images point to another era. From saturated Côte d’Azur beaches to a tennis court in Monaco suspended above the sea, from winter sports resorts where people wear sunglasses like jewelry to the Italian dolce vita seen from a hotel with a swimming pool. These are the travel archives of Nik Wheeler, the father, drawn from decades of work in more than 100 countries. Photographs taken between the 1960s and the 1990s that, in the light of 2026, look less like reportage than like paintings of a vanished and desirable world.

What these images of beaches and palaces do not say is where Nik Wheeler comes from. He was 29 when he set foot in Saigon in 1968, camera in hand for United Press International. He covered Tet, the Battle of Huế, and followed soldiers through the mud. Two and a half years later, he headed to Beirut, then the Middle East: the Jordan conflict for Time, the Yom Kippur War for Newsweek. And one day, at Algiers airport, a man he recognized: Carlos. He pressed the shutter. The photo he brought back remained for years the only known image of the world’s most wanted terrorist, and became one of the major press photographs of the 20th century.

National Geographic then sent him to Iraq, to the Marsh Arabs. He lived with them, photographed their ancient world, the reed villages, the boats on the Euphrates, and brought back material for a book, Return to the Marshes, published by Collins. These became the only photographic records ever authorized by Saddam Hussein’s regime of that region. Years later, Saddam drained the marshes and burned the villages with napalm. Wheeler had photographed everything beforehand. Perhaps that is what explains his love of the beautiful world that follows: after documenting humanity in its convulsions, one ends up wanting to look at it in its gentlest hours. More than 300 magazine covers, portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood, and somewhere in that million images, also a son watching him.

Chanel © Nik and Kerry Wheeler

Kerry Wheeler grew up in that wake. Raised between stories of Saigon and slides from around the world, he first followed another path: a career in entertainment in Los Angeles. Then one day, he left everything for photography. His universe is the opposite of Nik’s, and yet in direct continuity with it. “Where his father chronicled the events and people of the world, Kerry creates visual fiction: cinematic daydreams that capture the beauty, freedom, and emotional texture of a life well lived.” The specialist press quickly compared him to a contemporary Slim Aarons. He works between medium-format film and high-resolution digital, seeking in each print a kind of tactile warmth. “There are large natural elements that play off one another, and the way we interact with them is what makes living here an art of living,” he said to Santa Barbara Magazine. His images of Mediterranean coasts and the Riviera have generated hundreds of millions of views online.

Today, this exhibition brings father and son together and tells something essential about the transmission of photography from one generation to the next. YellowKorner, which initiated its collaboration with Wheeler Collective last year with seven images, several of which immediately established themselves as bestsellers, is accompanying the exhibition with a special collection available in all of its galleries starting from July 9 to August 27. Several works are also being offered exclusively at La Hune until December 31, 2026, in a limited edition of 50 prints: Ciao Bella, The Lounge Hour, Aperol Hour, La Scogliera Beach Club, Take Flight, Private Parking. Summer is here — enjoy it.

“Summer with the Wheelers” runs from July 2 to September 5, 2026 at the La Hune gallery-bookstore in Paris. YellowKorner’s operation runs from July 9 to August 27, 2026, every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. A special opening reception with the artists in attendance on Tuesday, July 21, starting at 6 p.m.

The Wheeler Collective collection will be available at YellowKorner starting July 9, 2026, on yellowkorner.com and in galleries.

Summer According to the Wheelers