Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The municipal museum of Villefranche-sur-Saône was founded in 1863 around multidisciplinary collections (beaux-arts, archaeology, mineralogy, etc.), typical of provincial museums in the second half of the 19th century. Installed in 1893 in an old grain hall called the Grenette, it declined in the 1950s before closing in 1978, its premises being occupied by the municipal library. The renaissance of the museum began in the 1980s when the city turned to contemporary art with the Plastic Arts Centre, which became a recognized place of the regional artistic scene.

In 1999, Muguette and Paul Dini offered the city several hundred paintings by artists related to the Lyon region and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (from 1865 to the present). This donation, followed by seven others, allowed the reopening of the museum in 2001 under the name Paul-Dini Museum, in tribute to the couple. A second space, the former Cornil textile factory (active from 1931 to 1985), was set up in 2005 to host exhibitions and educational workshops. The industrial architecture of the place, preserved by the cabinet a.u*m – Jean-Claude Rérolle, offers a bright and spacious setting.

The museum's collections highlight artistic movements that have marked Lyon and its region, from flower painters linked to silks to symbolists, to Ziniars and 20th century avant-garde groups like the New. The museum's vocation is to evoke the local pictorial heritage, from 1865 to contemporary art, through works by artists who lived or worked in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The building, formerly dedicated to trade (grain hall) and then to industry (textile factory), now embodies heritage rehabilitation in the service of culture.

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