The Matisse and Bonnard exhibition is the icing on the cake for the Fondation Maeght’s 60th birthday

The Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght in the picturesque village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the south of France is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. This makes Maeght Europe’s oldest independent foundation, founded by the art dealer couple to emulate the Barnes Foundation and the Phillips Collection in the USA.

Maeght’s exhibitions of site-specific, mostly outdoor works by 20th-century greats – including Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall – are still considered a model for the presentation of modern sculpture. To coincide with its anniversary, the foundation has significantly expanded its light-filled Alberto Giacometti Room, a €5 million project that includes a room for artists’ books and prints, where the Maeghts originally worked in galleries in Cannes and Paris.

A groundbreaking exhibition of works by two artists who have been influential for the gallery and the foundation – Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard – rounds off the celebrations (until October 6). Among the approximately 300 works are four drawings by Matisse of Marguerite Maeght, whom he met by chance in a doctor’s waiting room in Vence in 1944.

Not included, as the catalogue reveals, is Bonnard’s The market of Oursins (The Sea Urchin Seller) (1939), a gift from the artist to Marguerite, which she reluctantly had to sell to finance the foundation. “We had hoped to present it in this exhibition, but unfortunately the (private) owners were not willing to lend it…” writes the Maeghts’ son, Adrien, who at 94 is still president of the foundation.

Other lenders were more willing. Among the loans from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris is Bonnard’s last painting, The Amandier with flowers (The Blossoming Almond Tree) (1946-47), a work that Adrien remembers hanging in his childhood room. The Nahmad family of dealers and collectors, who are represented at the Picasso Museum in nearby Antibes (until October 27) at the same time as their Miró exhibition, have acquired Matisse’s The dancer’s dreams (Resting Dancer) (1942), originally shown at the Galerie Maeght in Paris.

The foundation no longer needs to sell its art to function. The commercial gallery is still owned and run by the family in Paris, but is a completely separate business, a spokesman says. Meanwhile, the Fondation Maeght is also well supported privately. Its list of patrons includes the best French corporate and private donors, as well as international art market giants such as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Hauser & Wirth.

Visitor turnaround

Visitors also help balance the finances. Although the foundation was not originally designed for the public, the Maeghts changed their mind almost immediately after opening when “there were a thousand people who wanted to see it,” according to Adrien’s daughter Isabelle Maeght, who sits on the foundation’s board. In 2018, they brought in respected cultural leader Nicolas Gitton as director, after a turbulent period described in the 2014 book The Maegh Sagat by another of Adrien’s children, Yoyo, who left the board in 2011.

Now everything seems to be back in order and efforts are being made to attract a younger audience. The entry age has been raised from under ten to under 16. Locals are also being courted. While the foundation can receive around 1,000 visitors a day in summer, it is much quieter outside of the holidays (around 130,000 visitors annually). The additional interior space partly takes this into account.

Sixty years, however, seems like a significant step in a story that Isabelle describes as one of survival against all odds. Her grandparents moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1948 to save their other son, Bernard, who was suffering from leukemia and died five years later at just 11 years old. “When my uncle died, they were devastated,” Isabelle says. “It was thanks to the artists that (Marguerite and Aimé) were able to create something so special.”