Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In 1961 Picasso moved to Mougins with his
second wife Jacqueline Roque. He had many
friends in the area, including photographer
André Villers, to whom Picasso gave his first
camera and who in turn took numerous por-
traits of the artist.
Picasso died in Mougins in 1973 and is bur-
ied in Château de Vauvenargues, which re-
mains the property of his family.
Hungarian-born Victor Vasarely (1908-97), best-
known for his bold, colourful geometrical forms
and shifting perspectives, had a summer house in
Gordes from 1948. He opened a first museum there
in 1970 (which closed in 1996) and a second one,
Fondation Vasarely, in Aix-en-Provence in 1976,
which you can still visit.
Modern Art
Chagall
Belorussian painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985) moved to Paris from Russia in 1922. He
was well-known for his dazzling palette and the biblical messages in his later works (in-
spired by his Jewish upbringing in Russia and trips to Palestine). Chagall managed to es-
cape to the US during WWII and it's upon his return to France in the early 1950s that he
settled in St-Paul de Vence on the Côte d'Azur. Both Matisse and Picasso lived in the area
at the time and many artists regularly visited; it was this sense of 'artistic colony' that at-
tracted Chagall.
It's acknowledged however, that Provence-Côte d'Azur itself never became inspiration
fodder for Chagall. It did offer him a good home, and the incredible Musée National Marc
Chagall in Nice attests to the strong bond the artist developed with the region. Chagall is
buried in St-Paul de Vence.
New Realism
Provence-Côte d'Azur produced a spate of artists at the forefront of modern art in the
middle of the 20th century. Most famous perhaps was Nice-born Yves Klein (1928-62),
who stood out for his series of daring monochrome paintings, the distinctive blue he used
in many of his works and his experiments in paint application techniques: in his series
An-
thropométrie
, paint was 'applied' by women covered from head to toe in paint and writh-
ing naked on the canvas.
