The Cantini museum is located at Marseille, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. Located at 19 rue Grignan, near the Old Port, the establishment is housed in a mansion built in 1694 on behalf of the Compagnie du Cap Nègre, which specializes in coral fishing off the Tunisian coasts and in the trade wools.
The vast site with neo-classical architecture, with central body and wings on three levels, became in 1888 the property of Jules Cantini, sculptor and importer of marble, and who took part in numerous building sites having structured Marseille in the last third of the 19th century. When he died in 1916, he bequeathed the building to the city so that a museum of decorative arts could be created. In fact, it was inaugurated in 1936 and then presented works dating from the 17th to the 19th century. Nowadays, the museum displays collections of modern and contemporary art. The fund is one of the richest in France outside of Paris.
The collections present, chronologically, works representative of the movements of the early 20th century: Pointillism, Fauvism and Cubism (with paintings by Matisse, Signac, Derain, in particular). The "schools" of the interwar period such as abstract art, Dadaism, art deco or purism are then evoked with paintings by Chagall, Pascin or Le Corbusier, for example.
Another part of the collection is devoted to surrealism, the main figures of which met and spent some time in Marseille at the start of the Second World War, before for the most part going into exile. Works by Miro, Ernst and Masson are notably exhibited, as well as drawings by Breton, founder of the movement, and photos by Man Ray. Lighting is dedicated to the collective works created at the time (games of exquisite corpses, illustrations of tarot cards).
Finally, the Cantini museum has a number of paintings, sculptures or photos representing art and its contemporary development from the post-war period to the present day (works by Picasso, Picabia, Dubuffet, de Staël, Giacometti, Soulages …).
Temporary exhibitions, workshops and conferences are regularly offered. Open every day except Monday, January 1, May 1, November 1 and 11 and December 25. Free entry for the permanent collections, price of 3 euros for the temporary exhibitions. Information on +33 4 13 94 83 30.
