The museum building
The museum is located in the harbour of Le Havre, which has still a lot of commercial (container carriers) and passenger traffic. You cannot miss it with Henri-Georges Adam’s monumental sculpture “Le Signal” on its side. The museum is easy to access with a free car park close by.
The museum opened in 1961 and was renovated in1999. The building is made of steel, glass and aluminium that give it a contemporary feel and transparency. Inside, it offers a vast open space with white walls and a soft natural light flowing through large openings. A ramp with a wooden floor leads to the mezzanine area, allowing wheelchair access.
The permanent collection
The museum benefited from major donations over the years:
• Eugène Boudin died in 1898. A year later, his brother Louis donated to Le Havre 60 canvases and 180 panels (studies and sketches). A total of 224 painted sketches by Eugène Boudin joined the collections of the museum in 1900.
Eugène Boudin: Lady in white on the beach of Trouville, oil on cardboard, 1869, donation Louis Boudin, 1900.
• The Charles-Auguste Marande Bequest: Marande was a wealthy Le Havre cotton merchant. He built a collection of works by Jongkind, Pissarro, Monet, Marquet, Camoin, Van Dongen, Delacroix, Decamps, Daubigny, Harpignies, Corot, Fantin-Latour, Vuillard and Roussel. He gifted the town with 63 paintings, 25 drawings and one sculpture.
Claude Monet: Les Nymphéas, oil on canvas, 1904, purchased from the artist by the city in 1911.
• The Hélène Senn-Foulds donation: Senn’s granddaughter, Hélène Senn-Foulds, donated to the Malraux museum 71 paintings, 130 graphic works and 5 sculptures from impressionist and fauvist painters.
Auguste Renoir: Portrait of Nini Lopez, oil on canvas, 1876, SENN Collection.
• Le Havre museum received a bequest from Raoul Dufy’s wife of thirty of Dufy’s paintings as well as thirty drawings, five watercolours, a tapestry, three ceramics and a bust of Dufy by Valorises.
The museum’s collection also counts paintings from European schools of paintings dating from the sixteen to the eighteen century: still life, religious paintings and landscapes. On the contemporary side, works by Dubuffet and Esteves are on show.
Practical details
Musée Malraux
2 boulevard Clemenceau
76600 LE HAVRE
Tel: 02 35 19 62 62
Website: http://musee-malraux.ville-lehavre.fr
1 comment:
The museum itself is lovely too - full of Normandy light.
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