Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Maillol Museum is a private museum inaugurated on 20 January 1995 in the Bouchardon Hotel, a mansion in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, at 61 rue de Grenelle. Created by Dina Vierny, muse and model of sculptor Aristide Maillol from the age of 15, this museum mainly exhibits Maillol's works as well as a 20th century collection of modern art, including paintings, sculptures and drawings. Dina Vierny, who also placed for artists such as Henri Matisse or Raoul Dufy, entrusted interior design to architect Pierre Devinoy after more than fifteen years of renovation.

The private hotel housing the museum has a rich history: the poet Alfred de Musset lived there between 1824 and 1840, and the painter Paul Baudry later installed his workshop there. Before becoming a museum, the basements had been home since 1951 to the cabaret La Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons, founded by the brothers Jacques and Pierre Prévert. In 1964, Dina Vierny offered to the state the monumental sculptures of Maillol, installed by André Malraux, then Minister of Culture, in the Tuileries gardens. In the same year, she founded her foundation to promote Maillol's work.

The museum, with an area of 4,250 m2, offers temporary exhibitions dedicated to the 20th and 21st centuries, in addition to permanent collections. Originally run by the Dina Vierny Foundation, it was operated by Culturespaces (a subsidiary of Engie) from 2015 to 2020. A crisis occurred in 2015 after the judicial liquidation of Tecniarte, an exhibition organizer since the death of Dina Vierny in 2009. In 2021, the reopening was carried out by the heirs of Vierny, with the support of the Belgian cultural operator Tempora.

The Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol Foundation, recognized as a public utility in France and the United States, aims to perpetuate Maillol's artistic heritage. The museum, conceived as the culmination of Dina Vierny's life, highlights its central role in the preservation and dissemination of the sculptor's work, while integrating commercial spaces (boutique, café) and a restaurant in the old basements of the cabaret.

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