CULTURE

Museums and exhibitions

YOU CAN GO TO MANY MUSEUMS, SOME VERY WELL-KNOWN, OTHERS LESS SO… HERE IS A NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST

MUSEE DU LOUVRE

Visiting the Louvre allows you to discover, through collections, Western art from the middle ages to 1848 and many ancient civilizations, but also calls for another story. The grand Palace which houses the Museum and which originated at the end of the 12th century is a real lesson in architecture: from 1200 to 2011, the most innovative architects succeeded to build and amplify the Louvre. Long seat of power, this Royal House which also housed the French statesmen until 1870 is also one of the large theatres where played Paris history and that of the France.

Place du palais royal 75001

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MUSÉE D’ORSAY

The history of the museum, its building, is unusual. Located in the heart of Paris, along the Seine, facing the Tuileries Garden, the museum is in the former Gare d’Orsay, a building built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. Thus the building is, in a way, the first “work” of the collections of the Musée d’Orsay which presents the art of the few decades which flow between 1848 and 1914.

The Musée d’Orsay, a national museum, opened to the public on 9 December 1986 to show, in all its diversity, the artistic creation of the Western World from 1848 to 1914. It has been made up of national collections mainly from three institutions:

• The Louvre museum for works by artists born from 1820, or emerging in the art world with the Second Republic;

• The Palm Game Museum dedicated since 1947 to Impressionism;

• Finally, the National Museum of Modern Art, which, when it was installed in 1976 at the Centre Georges Pompidou, has retained only the works of artists born after 1870.

But each artistic discipline represented in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay also has its own history, what this topic offers you to discover.

1, rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 75007 Paris

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MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY 

Opened in 2006, the Branly-Jacques Chirac Wharf Museum brings together the collections from a double inheritance: the Museum of Man and the National Museum of the Arts of Africa and Oceania. With more than 370 000 objects, 700 000 iconographic pieces and more than 200 000 titles of reference books, the Branly-Jacques Chirac Wharf Museum is one of the richest European public institutions dedicated to the study, preservation and promotion of Non-European arts and civilizations.

37 quai branly 75007

 

CENTRE GEORGES POMPIDOU

The opening of the Pompidou Centre dates from 1977; the building is the work of architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The museum houses the most important collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe and one of the first two in the world with more than 100 000 works from 1905 to the present day. Great figures of modern art are present in the collections, such as Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock as well as contemporaries such as Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein …

19 rue Beaubourg 75004

 

MUSÉE DU GRAND PALAIS AND PETIT PALAIS  

Architectural gems built by Charles-George and the Seine and the Champs-Elysées, the big and the small palaces are part of an exceptional monumental environment. With the Pont Alexandre III, it forms a set specially designed for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. It was then converted into museums of Fine Arts, in 1902, to house the rich collections of the city of Paris and exhibitions.

Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 

 

MUSÉE D’ART MODERNE

Located between the Champs-Elysées and the Eiffel Tower, the modern Art Museum of the city of Paris, an exceptional emblematic palace of the 1930s architecture, is undoubtedly one of the flagship establishments of the Parisian cultural field.

Its permanent collections present the great artistic currents ranging from the twentieth century to the present scene, illustrated by major artists in the history of Art: Picasso, Dufy, Modigliani, Derain, Picabia, Chagall, but also Boltanski, Reno and Peter Doig. The museum has exceptional in situ works such as the first two versions of the dance of Matisse or the electric fairy, the monumental masterpiece of Raoul Dufy.

11, avenue du Président-Wilson 75008

MUSÉE PICASSO 

Installed in the hotel Salé which is probably “the biggest, most extraordinary, not to say extravagant of the great Parisian hotels of the seventeenth century.”, the collection of the Picasso museum Paris has more than 5000 works, and several tens of thousands of archival pieces. By its quality, its magnitude as well as the diversity of the artistic domains represented, it is the only public collection in the world that allows both a traverse of all the work painted, carved, carved and drawn by Picasso, as the precise evocation-to Through sketches, studies, sketches, sketchbooks, successive reports of engravings, photographs, illustrated books, films and documents – the artist’s creative process.

5 rue de Thorigny 75003 Paris.

 

MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS

The Museum of Decorative Arts today maintains one of the most important collections of decorative arts in the world, distributed in five chronological departments (Middle Ages/Renaissance, XVII/XVIII, XIX, Art Nouveau/Art Deco, Modern/contemporary) and Seven thematic departments (graphic arts, jewellery, toys, wallpapers, glass, fashion and textiles, advertising and graphic design).

107 rue de rivoli 75001

 

MUSÉE NISSIM DE CAMONDO

63, rue de Monceau 75008 

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MUSÉE JACQUEMART-ANDRÉ

The architect Henri Parent realizes, from 1869 to 1876, a vast and beautiful construction inspired by the classic models by its perfectly symmetrical plan and by the decor of its facades for the wealthy Edouard André. With his wife, this one is a collection of paintings, objects and sculptures. Apart from the collections, the museum is worth a visit to admire the decoration of a particular 19th century hotel.

158 boulevard Haussmann 75008 

 

MUSÉE MARMOTTAN

The Musée Marmottan Monet, former hunting lodge of Christophe Edmond Kellermann, duc de Valmy, is acquired in 1882 by Jules Marmottan. His son Paul made his home and enlarged it with a hunting pavilion designed to receive his collection of art objects and first Empire paintings. Michel Monet, second son of the painter, bequeathed in 1966 to the Academy of fine Arts his property of Giverny and his collection of paintings inherited from his father for the museum Marmottan. He thus endowed the museum with the world’s largest collection of works by Claude Monet. The architect and curator of the Musée Jacques Carlu then built a room inspired by the great decorations of the orangerie of the Tuileries to receive the collection.

2 rue louis Boilly 75016

 

FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON 

Built by Frank Gehry on the edge of the Paris acclimation Garden, this vessel-shaped building dares the technological prowess of the 21st century.

The permanent collection is made up of contemporary works.

8, avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, bois de Boulogne,
75016 à la lisière du jardin d’acclimatation de Paris

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INSTITUT DU MONDE ARABE

The Arab World Institute is a museum of Arab-Muslim art and civilization. A presentation of Islamic art, considered in its wider territorial extension, that is to say from Spain to India, is extended by a more ethnographic approach to life in society in the Arab world and ends with contemporary Arab creation

1, rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard, Place Mohammed-V 75005 Paris

 

MUSÉE GUIMET

The museum houses a very important collection of Asian art: China, Japan, Himalaya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, South East Asia, Korea, India.

6, place d’Iéna- 75116 Paris

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But perhaps you prefer taking advantage of the temporary EXHIBITIONS accessible on the weekend of November 17  (addresses of exhibitions to be found in the list of museums) such as:

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GUSTAV KLIMT: atelier des lumières, 38 rue Saint-Maur 75011 Paris

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SIGMUND FREUD: Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme, 71 rue du Temple, 75003 Paris

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MIRO: Grand Palais (address above)

 

ALPHONSE MUCHA: Musée du Luxembourg  19 rue de Vaugirard 75006

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PICASSO BLEU ET ROSE: Musée d'Orsay (cf above)

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CARAVAGE A ROMA :Musée Jacquemart-André. 75008

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LES IMPRESSIONNISTES A LONDRES : Musée du Petit Palais (cf above)

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GIACOMETTI : Musée Maillol 75007

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JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT : Fondation Louis Vuitton (cf above)

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EBLOUISSANTE VENISE : Grand Palais (cf above)

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EGON SCHIELE : Fondation Louis Vuitton (cf above).

Monuments

Tour Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysées, Montmartre, Jardin des Tuileries, Quartier Latin, catacombes de Paris, La Seine,Le Marais...

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SHOPPING

Forum des Halles

Champs Elysées

Grands magasins Lafayette et Printemps Haussmann

Le Bon Marché

 

RESTAURANTS

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