The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in the List of most visited art museums in the world, with 1,501,040 visitors. It is one of the largest museums for modern and contemporary art. In 1937, the Musée National d'Art Moderne succeeded the

Musée du Luxembourg The Musée du Luxembourg () is a museum at 19 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Established in 1750, it was initially an art museum located in the east wing of the Luxembourg Palace (the matching west wing housed the Marie de' ...

, established in 1818 by King

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...

as the first museum of contemporary art created in Europe, devoted to living artists whose work was due to join the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

10 years after their death. Imagined as early as 1929 by

Auguste Perret Auguste Perret (12 February 1874 – 25 February 1954) was a French architect and a pioneer of the architectural use of reinforced concrete. His major works include the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the first Art Deco building in Paris; the C ...

to replace the old Palais du Trocadero, the construction of a museum of modern art was officially decided in 1934 in the western wing of the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

. Completed in 1937 for that year's International Exhibition of Arts and Technology, it was temporarily used for another purpose, since the exhibition of national and foreign ''art indépendant'' was then preferably held in the

Petit Palais The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...

and the Musée du Jeu de Paume. Although due to open in 1939, construction was eventually interrupted by the war; following the nomination of its first Chief Conservator in September 1940, the museum partially opened in 1942 with only a third of the collection brought back from some national collection caches hidden in the province. But its real inauguration didn't take place until 1947, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the addition of the foreign schools collection of the

, which had been held at the Musée du Jeu de Paume since 1922. In 1947, then housed in the

, its collection was dramatically increased by its first director,

Jean Cassou Jean Cassou (9 July 1897 – 15 January 1986) was a French writer, art critic, poet, member of the French Resistance during World War II and the first Director of the Musée national d'Art moderne in Paris. Biography Jean Cassou was born at Bi ...

, thanks to his special relationship with many prominent artists or their families, such as Picasso and Braque. With the creation of the

, the museum moved to its current location in 1977. The museum has the second largest collection of modern and

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic co ...

in the world, after the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York, with more than 100,000 works of art by 6,400 artists from 90 countries since Fauvism in 1905. These works include painting, sculpture, drawing, print, photography, cinema, new media, architecture, and design. A part of the collection is exhibited every two years alternately in an space divided between two floors, one for modern art (from 1905 to 1960, on the 5th floor), the other for contemporary art (from 1960, on the 4th floor), and 5 exhibition halls, on a total of within the Centre Pompidou. The Atelier Brancusi is located in its own building adjacent to the museum. The works displayed in the museum often change in order to show to the public the variety and depth of the collection. Many major temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art have taken place on a separate floor (the 6th) over the years, among them many one-person exhibitions. Since 2010, the museum has also displayed unique, temporary exhibitions in its provincial branch, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, in a space divided between 3 galleries and since 2015, in Málaga, Spain, and 2018, in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium.

Collections

Modern art (1905–1960)

Many styles of modern art, including Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism,

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

, Abstract art, Surrealism are represented with works by

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

André Derain André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. Biography Early years Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France (region), Île-de-Franc ...

Maurice de Vlaminck Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 we ...

Raoul Dufy Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted ...

, Albert Marquet, Le Douanier Rousseau,

Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Biography Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. ...

, Georges Braque,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

, Fernand Léger,

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

, Frida Kahlo,

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-century ...

, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Emil Nolde, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Carlo Carrà, Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Alexander Rodchenko, František Kupka, Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Jacques Villon, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Georges Rouault, Balthus, Max Beckmann, Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder, Chaïm Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Kees van Dongen, Jean Arp, Giorgio de Chirico, André Breton, Magritte, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Alberto Giacometti, René Iché, Nicolas de Staël, André Masson, Yves Tanguy, Jean Tinguely, Simon Hantaï, Yves Klein, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, and Francis Bacon (painter), Francis Bacon.

Contemporary art (art from 1960 on)

Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, Conceptual art and other tendencies or groups are represented with works by Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton (artist), Richard Hamilton, Rauschenberg, Dan Flavin, Eduardo Arroyo, Dan Graham, Daniel Buren, George Brecht, Arman, César Baldaccini, César, Bill Viola, Anish Kapoor, Wim Delvoye, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Yaacov Agam, Vasarely, John Cage, Cindy Sherman, Dieter Roth, Beuys, Roy Lichtenstein, Burhan Dogancay, Dubuffet, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Gilbert & George, David Hockney, Louise Bourgeois, and Art & Language. Works of architecture and design include Philippe Starck, Jean Nouvel, and Dominique Perrault.

Directors

* 2021 – present: Xavier ReyGareth Harris (July 28, 2021)
French culture ministry names 39-year-old Xavier Rey director of Centre Pompidou’s national museum of modern art
''The Art Newspaper''. * 2013 – 2021 : Bernard Blistène * 2000 – 2013 : Alfred Pacquement * 1997 – 2000 : Werner Spies * 1992 – 1997 : Germain Viatte * 1991 – 1992 : Dominique Bozo * 1987 – 1991 : Jean-Hubert Martin * 1986 – 1987 : Bernard Ceysson * 1981 – 1986 : Dominique Bozo * 1973 – 1981 : Pontus Hultén * 1968 – 1973 : Jean Leymarie (art historian), Jean Leymarie * 1965 – 1968 : Bernard Dorival * 1945 – 1965 :

* 1941 – 1944 : Pierre Ladoué * 1940 :

Gallery

File:Henri Matisse, 1916-17, Auguste Pellerin II, oil on canvas, 150.2 x 96.2 cm, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg, Henri Matisse, ''Auguste Pellerin II'', 1916–17 File:Jean Metzinger, 1911, Etude pour Le Goûter, graphite and ink on paper, 19 x 15 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg,

, ''Etude pour Le goûter (Tea Time), Le goûter'', 1911 File:Francis Picabia, 1913, Udnie (Young American Girl, The Dance), oil on canvas, 290 x 300 cm, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris..jpg, Francis Picabia, ''Udnie (Young American Girl, The Dance)'', 1913 File:Robert Delaunay, c.1906, Paysage au disque solaire, oil on canvas, 54 x 46 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne.jpg, Robert Delaunay, ''Paysage au disque'', 1906 File:Robert Delaunay, 1910, La ville no. 2, oil on canvas, 146 x 114 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg, Robert Delaunay, ''La ville no. 2'', 1910–11 File:Georges Braque, 1913, Nature morte (Fruit Dish, Ace of Clubs), oil, gouache and charcoal on canvas, 81 x 60 cm (31.8 x 23.6 in), Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg, Georges Braque, ''Nature morte (Fruit Dish, Ace of Clubs)'', 1913 File:Georges Braque, 1914, Man With a Guitar, oil on canvas, 130 x 73 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg, Georges Braque, ''Man With a Guitar'', 1914 File:To the Unknown Voice.JPG, Wassily Kandinsky, ''To the Unknown Voice'', 1916 File:Henri Matisse, 1916-17, Le Peintre dans son atelier (The Painter and His Model), oil on canvas, 146.5 x 97 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.jpg, Henri Matisse, ''The Painter and His Model (Le Peintre dans son atelier)'', 1916–17 File:Theo van Doesburg 010.jpg, Theo van Doesburg, ''Pure Painting'', 1920 File:Parade Picasso.jpg,

, ''Parade'', 1917, Centre Pompidou-Metz

External links

Collection online

Official website of the Museum

Official website of the Centre Pompidou

Official website of the Centre Pompidou-Metz provincial branch

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Musee National d'Art Moderne Art museums and galleries in Paris, Art Moderne Modern art museums in France, Art Moderne National museums of France, Art Moderne Buildings and structures in the 4th arrondissement of Paris Art museums established in 1947, Art Moderne 1947 establishments in France