Brophy

Hello!

Besides the D'Orsay, is there a Paris museum that specializes in either Art Deco or Art Nouveau? I'm (slowly) going through lists of Paris museums, but my eyes are watering from the sheer numbers of choices.

Thanks!

OReilly

Brophy, not a museaum, but include a walk around the 16th for great examples of Art Nouveau. It is also the home of the Corbusier institute. Eyewitness Paris Guide has a good walk.

regards Ger

Gretchen

I think there is one at Maxim's--maybe on the second or third floor. Also, if it is open, there is one in Montmartre. I'll look it up in my DK, hopefully

cigalechanta

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/artnouveau/en/villes/paris.htm

Michael

I believe that there is a museum of the thirties near Boulogne-Billancourt, which presumably would include some art déco. Others may have more accurate information.

Sarah

Thanks so much for this question...just picked up a great walk for my own trip!

Christina

I was going to say that the Orsay is the only one I know with much of a section on Art Nouveau -- but I do think I've heard about Maxim's having something as Gretchen mentioned.

Art Deco wasn't a big movement in Paris, that isn't where you go for Art Deco (go to Miami, NY, Chicago etc). There are a few buildings in that style, of course, but I don't know of a museum that specializes in it. There are some architectural examples of Art Nouveau buildings, also, of course and Ger's suggestion of the Corbusier foundation. Some museums should have posters from around the Art Nouveau period, of course (like Mucha), and the advertising museum probably has something, but maybe not major sections or specializations. The Rex theater is one of the few examples of Art Deco buildings I know in Paris, along with the Theatre des Champs Elysees. It's very nice to go to a concert there, it's a beautiful theatre.

OReilly

Hi Brophy:

I just checked my EW guide re the walk.

Start at Metro Eglise d’Auteuil.’
West along R. d’Auteui,
North on R. la Fontaine,
West along R. Assomption,
South along R. Dr. Blanche,
Past the Corbusier Villa Roche,
Finish Metro Jasmin


Regards Ger

mclaurie

Art Deco wasn't a big movement in Paris??? What about the exposition of 1925?

http://www.retropolis.net/exposition/

cigalechanta

My favorite buildings are the block on Avenue Rapp , The Maison de Rapport by J. lavirotte and The Castel Berger on rue La Fontaine by Guimand.

adeben

The best Art Nouveau museum in France (possibly the world!) is the Musee de L'Ecole' in Nancy. It's worth a trip if Art Nouveau is your interest. The rest of Nancy is also worth a glance!

Michael

Le Mus&eacute;e des Ann&eacute;es Trente est install&eacute; depuis 1998 dans un complexe dont une aile est un hommage au style Paquebot en vogue avant la seconde guerre mondiale, et un miroir aux immeubles <b>Art D&eacute;co</b> qui l'entourent. Cin&eacute;ma, m&eacute;diath&egrave;que et mus&eacute;e se partagent l'Espace Landowski, d&eacute;di&eacute; au sculpteur de renomm&eacute;e internationale mort dans cette ville en 1961. A droite, l'H&ocirc;tel de Ville a &eacute;t&eacute; dessin&eacute; par Tony Garnier (1934). Face &agrave; lui, l'H&ocirc;tel des Postes est d&ucirc; &agrave; Charles Giroud (1938).

cigalechanta

Michael, for those of us not fluent in French...Please?

Michael

It just says that the museum is in a set of buildings that echo the 1930's style (and may even be of that period). It is in Boulogne-Billancourt. Here's the web site:

http://www.articite.com/ile_de_franc...s_de_seine.htm

cigalechanta

Thanks, Michael, The ones I posted are the period of Art Nouveau architecture
that started in Paris in 1900 and over before the 30s.

Bree

You can easily do a walk of the Art Nouveau architecture of the 16th on your own, but if you’d like to take a guided walk of the area, Paris Walks does a very nice one which I went on earlier this month. It includes the Castel Beranger, which cigalechanta mentioned, several other Guimard buildings, and the Corbusier Foundation (the exterior only).

It isn’t one of their regularly scheduled weekly walks – I think it was scheduled only once in November – but, if you’re interested, you can e-mail them at [email protected] to find out when they’ll be doing it again.

Michael

Bree, you can visit the Le Corbusier villa next to the foundation building.

Gretchen

Personally I think Art Deco and particularly Art Nouveau were pretty big movements in France. Maybe it is the name that gives it away. Anyway, here is a page from a trip report I have copied for our next trip. Also, the collection in the Orsay is SO beautiful.

Wednesday afternoon Don and I took the one-hour tour of Pierre Cardin's Art Nouveau collection in the Mus&eacute;e Maxim above Maxim's. It's a real treat for those who enjoy decorative arts. There were only four of us on the tour. The other two were Americans as well, a woman and her mother who had seen an article about the new museum in Where Magazine in their hotel. Our guide was a young woman who spoke very clear French, and I was able to understand almost all of it. She was generous with her time and answered all of our questions.
There were essentially three parts to the tour. First, the guide gave us a bit of history about Maxim's, the Belle Epoque era, courtesans, and various personalities. Second was the Art Nouveau collection itself. Cardin's furniture, glassware and other pieces are used to furnish a turn of the century courtesan's apartment, and it's done beautifully. There is furniture with exquisite marquetry where exotic woods create interesting vegetative patterns. Cardin apparently had a fondness for the color green, and much of the glassware in his Art Nouveau collection is in varying shades of the color. The collection goes beyond French Art Nouveau works, as he has some Austrian Secession pieces and a number of beautiful and unusual Tiffany lamps. The tour ended in a room displaying Cardin's extensive collection of pen and ink caricatures by SEM. It was well worth the time and money.

Art_Vandelay

Not wanting to play architecture professor here, but Le Corbusier is the exact opposite of Art D&eacute;co: his modernist, sober, geometrical style was, with Germany's Bauhaus, the response to what was perceived as the ornamentation excesses of Art D&eacute;co. Which shouldn't prevent any one from visiting the Fondation Le Corbusier, a unique modernist masterpiece within Paris.

Actually, I would second Christina's comments: Paris is not a big Art D&eacute;co center in Europe, even if the sheer size of the city allows for AD buildings here and there. Haussmann had pretty much built up all of bourgeois Paris by the time AD arrived, so no room was physically left for AD to blossom as buildings (there was furniture and object though, visible at the... mus&eacute;e des Arts d&eacute;coratifs next to the Louvre, and the Boulogne 30s museum is also a good suggestion).

Real hard core AD cities in Europe are Nancy indeed, Brussels, Barcelona, Glasgow, and all the Mitteleuropa capitals - Vienna, Budapest, Prague.

111op

The Met in NYC recently held some expositions on Art Deco in Paris. These links may be of interest for background reading:

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={32B808A0-5EFD-44AF-B235-0C41B9BB730

http://www.metmuseum.org/special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId={72DC7B82-0409-4D91-B648-45425058F88D}

If nothing else, it will certainly give you some names of the key figures of this period.