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While Paris had nothing and the MoMA in New York remained a good idea, the curator André-Farcy brought Picasso, Max Ernst, Chirico or Modigliani here.
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The entrance to the museum opened in 1994.
Credits: Grenoble Tourisme.
Seeing the exhibition dedicated to 19th century Grenoble artists is good. Visiting the museum from top to bottom is even better. But beware! The new building inaugurated in 1994, when Alain Carignon was the megalomaniac mayor of the city (things have ended very badly for him, the prison …) is immense. Fifty-seven rooms. A mastodon the size of the Fabre de Montpellier or the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, but in a modern version. That said, the architecture of the Place Lavalette building is nothing like the architectural gesture. The only striking thing is the width of the white central corridor, completely empty. Two teams of elephants would cross there easily!
André-Farcy in the old museum. On the right, a monumental Matisse. DR photo taken from the museum website.
Founded in 1798, so early on, the Musée de Grenoble has as it should be a fine collection of old masters, which is still growing occasionally. We know that the regions offer remarkable collections like this which, taken together, would almost make up a second Louvre. The originality here however consists in the capital presence of modern art. The Dauphinoise capital has long been a driving force of contemporary art in France. Acquisitions have been going well since the early 1920s under the leadership of director Pierre André-Farcy (1882-1950). By way of comparison, I recall that the Museum of Modern Art in Paris opened its doors in 1947 and that the MoMA in New York was inaugurated in 1929.
Countless donations
André-Farcy did not have a lot of money. He received the Agutte-Sembat donation in 1923. Matisse, Matisse and again Matisse in the midst of works sometimes signed Georgette Agutte. The rest is essentially the result of largesse. Picasso gives a centerpiece in 1921. And if the institution offered itself with its funds a Modigliani in 1923, three years after the death of the painter, Max Ernst, the merchant Paul Guillaume, Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet became patrons. Even Dr. Barnes, miserly like no other, splits a Chirico of the good time. The museum then looks courageously towards expressionist Germany, nascent Brazil or Italy woken up under the apparent Mussolini sleep. These curiosities earned André-Farcy an arrest in 1943 for showing degenerate art. He will get away with it …
Guy Tosatto and a Morandi. Photo FR3.
The continuation sees scrolling to the direction of Grenoble of names that count. They range from Jean Leymarie (who acquired the first Giacometti in French museums in 1952) to Marie-Claude Beaud, passing by Maurice Besset (who would later teach in Geneva) or Serge Lemoine (the future director of Orsay). The old museum, abandoned in 1992, is a breeding ground for talent. Paintings from its collections travel around the world, while Paris remains a province in this area. Even today, under the leadership of Guy Tosatto, in office since 2002, the institution continues to maintain its rank. Tosatto is a head. He was also born in 1958 in La Tronche.
Generosity expected
What would it take to make everyone happy? Let Beaubourg put some of his own in it. Even a lot. While its collections have quintupled since its opening in 1977, the Parisian center nevertheless plays the Harpagon. He sleeps not on his gold, but on his paintings. Even its Metz branch does not have permanent mailings. Wouldn’t it be better to scatter half of this manna, indecently piled up? All in all, the Musée de Grenoble is as large in terms of space as that of the fourth and fifth floors of the Center Pompidou! It happens to him to have, for certain exhibitions (they turn out to be very varied) almost as many visitors … Could there be contempt or jealousy below?
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