Musée Picasso () is an
art gallery
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...
located in the Hôtel Salé () in rue de Thorigny, in the
Marais district of
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, dedicated to the work of the
Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
(1881–1973). The museum collection includes more than 5,000 works of art including paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, prints, engravings, and notebooks, as well as tens of thousands of archived pieces from Picasso's personal repository, including the artist's photographic archive, personal papers, correspondence, and author manuscripts. A large portion of items were donated by Picasso's family after his death, in accord with the wishes of the artist, who lived in France from 1905 to 1973.
[Musée Picasso, The Collection](_blank)
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Building
The ''hôtel particulier
() is the French term for a grand urban mansion, comparable to a Townhouse (Great Britain), British townhouse. Whereas an ordinary (house) was built as part of a row, sharing party walls with the houses on either side and directly fronting on a ...
'' that houses the collection was built between 1656 and 1659 for Pierre Aubert, seigneur de Fontenay, a tax farmer who became rich collecting the ''gabelle'' or salt tax (the name of the building means "salted"). The architect was Jean Boullier from Bourges
Bourges ( ; ; ''Borges'' in Berrichon) is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre (Cher), Yèvre. It is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Cher (department), Cher, and also was the capital city of the former provin ...
. The sculpture was carried out by the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy
The brothers Gaspard (born 1624 or 1625, died 10 December 1681) and Balthazar Marsy (baptised 6 January 1628, died May 1674) were French sculptors. Originally from Cambrai, they moved to Paris and were employed by King Louis XIV, particularly f ...
and by Martin Desjardins.
The mansion has changed hands several times by sale or inheritance although the occupants have included the Embassy of the Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...
(1671), then François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi. The mansion was expropriated by the State during the French Revolution and in 1815 it became a school, in which Balzac studied. In 1829 the mansion housed the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. It also housed the municipal École des Métiers d'Art. It was acquired by the City of Paris in 1964, and was granted historical monument status in 1968.[ Ancien hôtel Aubert de Fontenay ou Salé, actuellement musée national Picasso] The mansion was restored by Bernard Vitry and Bernard Fonquernie of the Monument historique
() is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which national heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a collection of buildings, ...
in 1974–1980.
The Hotel Salé was selected for the Musée Picasso after some contentious civic and national debate. A competition was held to determine who would design the facilities. The proposal from Roland Simounet was selected in 1976 from amongst the four that were submitted. Other proposals were submitted by Roland Castro
Roland Castro (16 October 1940 – 9 March 2023) was a French architect and political activist.
Biography
Roland Castro was born in Limoges on 16 October 1940.
By the end of 1966 he was a member of the editorial committee of ''Melp!'', the Éc ...
and the GAU (Groupement pour l'Architecture et l'Urbanisme), Jean Monge, and Carlo Scarpa. For the most part, the interior of the mansion (which had undergone significant modifications) was restored to its former spacious state.
Collection
Formation of the collection
In 1968, France created a law that permitted heirs to pay inheritance taxes with works of art instead of money, as long as the art is considered an important contribution to the French cultural heritage. This is known as a ''dation'', and it is allowable only in exceptional circumstances. Dominique Bozo, a curator of national museums, selected those works that were to become the ''dation Picasso''. This selection was reviewed by Jean Leymarie and ratified in 1979. It contained work by Picasso in all techniques and from all periods, and is especially rare in terms of its excellent collection of sculptures. Upon Jacqueline Picasso's death in 1986, her daughter offered to pay inheritance taxes by a new ''dation''. The collection has also acquired a number of works through purchases and gifts.
Picasso once said "I am the greatest collector of Picassos in the world." He had amassed an enormous collection of his own work by the time of his death in 1973, ranging from sketchbooks to finished masterpieces. The Musée Picasso has over 5,000 works of art by Picasso including 3,700 works on paper, ceramics, sculptures in wood and metal, and paintings.[Gareth Harris (April 6, 2011)]
The price of a Picasso loan
''The Art Newspaper
''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments i ...
''. This is complemented by Picasso's own personal art collection of works by other artists, including Renoir, Cézanne, Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French people, French Impressionism, Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, Print ...
, Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...
, Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat ( , ; ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough ...
, de Chirico
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( ; ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His ...
and Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
. It also contains some Iberian bronzes and a good collection of African art
African art encompasses modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual cultures originating from indigenous African diaspora, African communities across the African continent. The definition may also include the ar ...
, by which Picasso was greatly inspired. The museum also contains a large number of works that Picasso painted after his seventieth birthday.
Presentation of the works
There are a few rooms with thematic presentations, but the museum largely follows a chronological sequence, displaying painting, drawings, sculptures and prints. Other items include photographs, manuscripts, newspaper clippings and photographs to provide additional contextual information. The museum has also made an effort to present works by cartoonists who mocked or caricatured Picasso's work from the 1950s.
The second floor has a special area set aside for temporary exhibitions and prints. The third floor contains the library, the documentation and archives department (reserved for research), and the curator's offices.
Management
Funding
More than 5,000 works were donated by Picasso's family after his death in 1973 under a law permitting heirs to contribute art in lieu of tax payments. More donations came from the estate of Picasso's last wife, Jacqueline Roque, and from Anne Sinclair, a museum board member.[Doreen Carvajal (October 28, 2013)]
Picasso Museum Makeover Drags On
''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. Since 1985 more than 1,000 exhibits have been bought by the museum.
In a period of economic crisis and government cutbacks on funding for culture, longtime director Anne Baldassari still managed to raise $41 million for the makeover by exporting artworks for exhibition abroad. The Musée Picasso raised between €1 million and €3.5 million a year between 2008 and 2011 from the touring exhibition "Masterpieces from the Picasso Museum". The tour helped fund the refurbishment of the museum and included the De Young Museum, San Francisco, where attendance topped 335,000, the Chinese Pavilion, Shanghai, the Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most import ...
, Sydney, the Art Gallery of Ontario
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...
, Toronto, and the Palazzo Reale, Milan. Upon re-opening, the museum is expected to finance more than 60 percent of its annual budget.
Governance
In 2014, Baldassari was dismissed by Aurélie Filippetti, the French minister of culture, after mounting criticism of her management. New director Laurent Le Bon reopened the museum in September 2014 following a €52 million five-year renovation dogged by delays and escalating costs.
Expansion
By the end of the ongoing construction work, the museum's public space was to nearly triple, to around 58,000 square feet, by moving staff offices to a newly purchased building. The expansion project, whose budget doubled to almost $70 million, was supposed to be completed in two years when it began in 2009. But as it grew in scope and size, reopening dates were announced and delayed several times.
After a five-year closure the museum reopened on 25 October 2014.
See also
* Museu Picasso
The Museu Picasso (, "Picasso Museum") is an art museum in Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. It houses an extensive collection of artworks by the twentieth-century Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, with a total of 4251 of his works. It is housed in f ...
(Barcelona)
* Museo Picasso Málaga
* List of single-artist museums
References
External links
Official website in English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musee Picasso
Buildings and structures completed in 1659
Museums with year of establishment missing
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
Modern art museums in France
Monuments historiques of Paris
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
National museums of France
Le Marais
Buildings and structures in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris
Pablo Picasso