Itinerary · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Nice and the Côte d'Azur: 4 Days of Modern Art
A 4-day connoisseur's itinerary in the footsteps of Matisse, Chagall, Picasso and Renoir: the Cimiez hill and its two national museums, Belle Époque villas and the MAMAC in Nice, the Château Grimaldi in Antibes, Les Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer, and finally the Chapelle du Rosaire and Fondation Maeght around Vence and Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
4 days · 9 stops · Connoisseur
Other itineraries for Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur:
Overview
Numbers follow the order of the route, day by day — the dashed line is indicative, not a precise driving route.
Day 1
Cimiez, the hill of Matisse and Chagall
On the hills above Nice, the Matisse Museum occupies a 17th-century Genoese villa surrounded by olive trees, a short walk from the monastery where the painter is buried — then, further down the hill, the Musée national Message biblique Marc Chagall, a building purpose-built in 1972 to house the cycle of seventeen canvases the artist donated to the French state.
17th-century Genoese villaMuseum · Nice
Musée Matisse
The Matisse Museum in Nice is a monographic museum dedicated to the artist Henri Matisse, located in Nice in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It occupies the Villa…
The Biblical Message cycleMuseum · Nice
Musée national Message biblique Marc Chagall
The National Museum of the Biblical Message of Marc Chagall is a French public institution located in Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes. The museum is distinguished…
Day 2
Nice, between Belle Époque and contemporary art
Three faces of artistic Nice in a single day: the MAMAC and its collections of French and American contemporary art since the 1960s, the Villa Masséna, a Belle Époque mansion tracing Nice's rise as a winter resort town, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, housed in another villa of the same era and devoted to the father of the modern poster and his contemporaries.
Contemporary art since the 1960sMuseum · Nice
Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain
The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice (MAMAC) is a public institution located at Place Yves Klein in Nice in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region.…
Belle Époque mansionMuseum · Nice
Villa Masséna, musée d'art et d'histoire
The Masséna Museum, located in Nice in a historic villa, is a museum registered as part of the national heritage since 2002. It combines history and art,…
Father of the modern posterMuseum · Nice
Musée des beaux-arts Jules Chéret
The Jules Chéret Museum of Fine Arts has been located in Nice since 1928 in a residence built in 1878 by Ukrainian princess Kotschoubey and completed by…
Day 3
Antibes and Cagnes-sur-Mer, Picasso and Renoir by the sea
The Château Grimaldi in Antibes, where Picasso settled for an entire autumn in 1946 and painted with newfound postwar freedom, is today home to one of the richest Picasso collections anywhere — then, in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Les Collettes, the house where Renoir spent his last twelve years amid his olive grove, his studio and wheelchair preserved just as he left them.
Picasso in Antibes, 1946Castle · Antibes
Château Grimaldi (musée Picasso)
Le château Grimaldi est une forteresse médiévale implantée à Antibes, en Alpes-Maritimes. Ancienne résidence seigneuriale, le bâtiment accueille depuis…
Les Collettes, his final homeMuseum · Cagnes-sur-Mer
Musée Renoir
Created in 1960, the Renoir Museum occupies the last residence of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), located on the Collettes hill in Cagnes-sur-Mer in…
Day 4
Vence and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Matisse's chapel and the Fondation Maeght
The final stop is the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, designed from top to bottom by Matisse between 1949 and 1951 — stained glass, ceramic murals and vestments included — which he considered the culmination of his entire body of work; then the Fondation Maeght, the first French institution entirely devoted to modern art, opened in 1964 in a building by architect Josep Lluís Sert designed to converse with works by Miró, Giacometti and Braque.
Chapel designed by MatisseChurch · Vence
Chapelle du Rosaire
La Chapelle du Rosaire, dite chapelle Matisse, est une chapelle contemporaine située à Vence en Alpes-Maritimes. Réalisée par Henri Matisse pour les sœurs…
Icon of modern artMuseum · Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Fondation Maeght
The Maeght Foundation is a contemporary art museum located in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, in the Alpes-Maritimes. Founded as the first independent French institution…
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