- Classic modern art in the idyllic Mediterranean setting where it was created.
- Highlights include Matisse’s Chapel of the Rosary, Picasso’s War and Peace, Chagall’s Biblical Message.
- Led by Alastair Sooke, art critic for the Telegraph and author of Matisse: A Second Life.
- Lovely seaside towns of Antibes and Vallauris; the charming hilltop mediaeval Vence.
- Stylish four-star hotel partially built into the cliff and overlooking the Promenade des Anglais, Nice.
INTRODUCTION
Antibes, oiliograph c. 1870.
Lecturer: Alastair Sooke. Deputy art critic of The Daily Telegraph and one of Britain’s leading arts journalists and broadcasters. Since joining the Telegraph as a trainee in 2003, he has interviewed many of the most famous artists in the world, including Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Jeff Koons.
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Natural resources and climate have drawn invaders and visitors to Nice and its surroundings from the Greek colonists of classical times to the jet-set of today. But from the late nineteenth century a special category of visitor – and settler – has transformed the Côte d’Azur into the greatest concentration of modern art in Europe. Matisse, Picasso and Chagall are among the most illustrious of the artists who chose to live in the South of France and this tour is a fine opportunity to see the works they produced.
Matisse’s first visit to the Midi in 1904 transformed his art, and from 1918 he spent more time on the Côte d’Azur than in Paris. Towards the end of his life, wracked with ill health, he was persuaded by a former model turned nun to decorate the chapel of her convent. The result of his designs for the building, stained glass, murals, metalwork and vestments is the modest, joyous Chapelle du Rosaire.
At Antibes the Picasso Museum is housed in the Château Grimaldi, lent to the artist as studio space in 1946, a year in which, with the war over and Françoise Gilot happily ensconced, he produced a series of life-affirming paintings. In 1947 he tried his hand at pottery, which revitalised the local ceramics industry in Vallauris. Also here are his powerful and disturbing War and Peacepanels, in a mediaeval vaulted chamber.
Chagall settled in the Riviera in 1949 and worked there until his death in 1985, aged 98. In 1966 he gave to the state the seventeen large canvasses of the Old Testament cycle, a luxuriant and joyous culmination of his individualistic visionary style, now on display in his eponymous museum in Nice.
Visting the Fondation Maeght in St-Paul-de-Vence, offers an opportunity to see other artists who flocked to the south (Braque, Bonnard, Léger) as well as the ‘big three’. The building itself (designed by José Luis Sert, 1963) is a work entirely sympathetic to its natural surroundings, set in gardens enlivened by Miró’s Labyrinthe and other sculptures.
ITINERARY
DAY 1
Nice. Fly at c. 11.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Nice. There is an afternoon visit to the Musée Matisse, which unites a wide range of the artist’s work; sculpture, ceramics, stained glass as well as painting. First of three nights in Nice.
DAY 2
Antibes, Vallauris. Most of the paintings Picasso produced in his studio in the Château Grimaldi in 1946 have been donated to the town of Antibes. Vallauris is a centre of contemporary pottery revived by Picasso. His works are displayed in the Ceramics Museum, alongside his masterpiece War and Peace.
DAY 3
St Paul de Vence, Vence. The Maeght Foundation at St-Paul-de-Vence is renowned for its collections (Picasso, Hepworth, Miró, Arp, Giacometti, but not all works are shown at once) and for its architecture and setting. At Vence see the Chapel of the Rosary, designed and decorated by Matisse.
DAY 4
Nice. The Marc Chagall Museum has the largest collection of the artist’s works, notably the seventeen canvases of the Biblical Message, set in a peaceful garden in a salubrious Nice suburb. Fly from Nice arriving at London Heathrow at c. 4.30pm
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