Art & Vacation
If you are thinking about combining a seaside holiday with art contemplation this summer holiday season, we suggest visiting the following art destinations:
Niki de Saint Phalle (Tuscany)
Located about 100 km north-west of Rome near the coast, the Tarot Garden (Giardino dei Tarocchi) is a sculpture park with 22 monumental sculptures based on the esoteric tarot, created by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle, at Pescia Fiorentina, in the Capalbio area of southern Tuscany.
More than 100 works, including sculptures, drawings, videos, photographs between the 60s and 90s, including the rare ones, are kept here. The Nanas play many roles throughout the garden - the ultimately buoyant, funny fertility goddesses. During the two decades that Saint Phalle worked on the garden, she lived in a house-size sculpture of a sphinx, where her bedroom was inside one breast, her kitchen in the other.
Fondation Maeght (Southeast of France)
La Fondation Maeght is a place where art, architecture and nature exist in harmony together. The complex ranges across internal and exterior spaces, from a sculpture garden, courtyards, terraces and patios, to exhibition rooms, a chapel, a library and a bookshop.
La Fondation owns a large collection in Europe of paintings, sculptures, drawings and graphic arts of the 20th century (Bonnard, Braque, Calder, Chagall, Giacometti, Hepworth, Kandinsky, Léger, Miró, Richier, Tal Coat, Ubac and many more) as well as contemporary artists such as Adami, Bergmann, Calzolari, Chillida, Christo, Del Re, Garouste, Hartung, Immendorff, Kelly, Lam, Mitchell, Monory, Takis, Tàpies. A highlight of the art destination is the Miró Labyrinth. The art location was built by the dealers Marguerite and Aimé Maeght in 1964.
Picasso Museum (Antibes)
In 1946, Picasso was offered the exceptional opportunity to set up his workshop in the heart of Château Grimaldi, the famous castle of Antibes Juan les Pins. Between mid-September and mid-November 1946, Pablo Picasso created numerous works within the castle walls, including Les Clés d’Antibes (The Keys of Antibes).
When he decided to return to Paris, Picasso left in the castle 23 paintings and 44 drawings. The museum now has about 245 works by Pablo Picasso. Visitors can discover well-known works such as “La Joie de Vivre “, “Satyr, Faun and Centaur with Trident“, “Still Life with Owl and Three Sea Urchins“, “The Woman with the Sea Urchins” and “She-Goat“. These works coexist with the Modern Art collection started in 1951 by Dor de la Souchère.
Dalí Theatre-Museum (Figueres, Catalonia, Spain)
Opened in 1974, the museum was designed by Dalí himself who wanted the space to recreate the experience of entering one of his dreamlike works. Described as “the world's largest Surrealist object”, this art destination is located in the artist’s hometown and showcases all the various aspects of his art.
More than a thousand works of art are here on display, including The Spectre of Sex Appeal, Soft Self Portrait With Fried Bacon, Galeta of the Spheres, The Girl From Figueres, Port Alguer, and pieces from Dali’s personal art collection. Several larger pieces were created especially for the museum, including the May West Room, the Wind Palace Room, and Rainy Cadillac. Dalí is buried in a crypt beneath the museum.
LUMA Arles
Launched in 2013 by Maja Hoffmann, LUMA Arles, was designed as an interdisciplinary creative campus where, through exhibitions, conferences, live performances, architecture and design, thinkers, artists, researchers, and scientists rediscover the relations between art, culture, environment, human rights, and research. The place hosts annual exhibitions of major artists, works by leading figures in contemporary art and design, commissions and in situ projects.
The Tower, designed by Frank Gehry completes the art spaces and offers new perspectives on the artistic vibe of the place. Regardless of which temporary exhibitions you catch during your trip to Arles, you always have the opportunity to discover Permanent Installations and Art Interventions, with the artworks by Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Etel Adnan, Carsten Höller, Liam Gillick, Ólafur Elíasson, to name just a few.
Fernand Léger Museum in Biot (South-eastern France)
Visiting Musée Fernand Léger is a unique opportunity to re-discover this 20th-century artist, with the largest collection of his works in a single place. The avant-garde modern artist was fascinated by industrial civilisation, his greatest source of inspiration was everyday life.
He never restricted himself to painting and considered that art required exploring many techniques. Staying true to his word, he turned his hand to mosaics, stained glass windows, decors, costumes and ceramic polychrome sculptures. A few months prior to his death in 1955, he purchased Mas Saint-André, at the foot of the village of Biot, which later will become Fernand Léger National Museum.
The Musée Marc Chagall (Nice)At the Musée Marc Chagall, located in the heart of Nice, Chagall’s works emanate timeless tranquillity. The collection is organized around the set of works produced by the painter on the Old Testament themes, supplemented by a number of works of secular or religious inspiration: over 400 paintings, gouaches, drawings, wash drawings and pastels.
Due to that, the museum gained its second name “the national museum of the biblical message of Marc Chagall”, housing his series of 17 paintings illustrating Genesis, Exodus, and the Song of Songs, painted by Chagall in 1966.
Can Prunera Museu Modernista (Mallorca)
Due to their permanent collection, Can Prunera Museu Modernista has become an essential venue in Majorca’s contemporary art scene. The collection’s masterpieces encompass works by artists from the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Joan Miró, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger and Maurice Vlaminck.
Renowned painters who were either born in Mallorca or have some link to the island are also included, with Santiago Rusiñol, Joaquim Mir, Joan Fuster, Eliseu Meifrén, Ritch Miller and Miquel Barceló among the names. Most of the works displayed belong to the Serra Art Collection, which has been granted by the Serra Art Foundation, chaired by the entrepreneur and art collector Pere A. Serra Bauzà.
Villa Carmignac (Porquerolles Island in Var, France)
If you are exploring the south of France, the Fondation Carmignac offers a publicly accessible art collection on Porquerolles Island in Var, France. Started in 2012, the contemporary art collection includes almost 300 works of art. Here you will see contemporary artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat and many more.
And you will even be surprised to come across paintings of Sandro Botticelli. Younger emerging artists are represented on the upper floor of the venue. The non-garden is the climax of the visit, with the imagination of Jean Denant, Jeppe Hein, Gonzalo Lebrija, Wang Keping, Olaf Breuning, Jaume Plensa, Ugo Rondinone, Ed Rusch and other prominent artists playing around with nature and visitors' senses.