French Riviera's Picasso Museum set to reopen

The Picasso Museum on the French Riviera, closed for renovation since February 2006, will reopen next month (tentative date is July 20).

The museum occupies the historic Chateau Grimaldi in Antibes, owned by a branch of the Monaco royal family until the little Cote d’Azur port town became part of France in 1608.

Picasso, who was in Antibes with his companion Francoise Gilot in the mid-1940s, decorated the chateau’s walls with “Ulysses and the Mermaids,” and completed other paintings there, including “La Joie de Vivre.”

In 1966, the Chateau Grimaldi was officially renamed the Picasso Museum. Subsequent bequests by Picasso family members and collectors have made the museum one of the best places to see Picasso’s work.

Next year, the museum plans to mount a major exhibition to celebrate “The Year of Picasso” in Provence.

– Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 13, 2008 at 9:30 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Europe, France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.