Mougins Museum of Classical Art

The MACM, the Mougins Museum of Classical Art (Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins) is an art museum located in the village of Mougins, in the Alpes-Maritimes region of France. It is 30 minutes from Nice airport and 15 minutes from the centre of Cannes.

Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins
Established2011
Location32, rue Commandeur / 06250 Mougins, France
Coordinates43.601316°N 6.994850°E / 43.601316; 6.994850
TypeArt museum
WebsiteOfficial site

The MACM opened to the public in June 2011. The museum has won several international awards and has loaned dozens of objects to other museums and university exhibitions all over the world.

The museum’s large and diverse collection of antiquities includes Roman, Greek and Egyptian sculpture, vases, coins, and jewellery, and the world’s largest private collection of ancient arms and armour .

The ancient artworks are interspersed with paintings, drawings, and sculptures by artists such as Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Raoul Dufy, Paul Cézanne, Auguste Rodin, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Marc Quinn, Antony Gormley, and Damien Hirst, and others. The collection also includes works by artists who spent time in Mougins, such as Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso (who spent the final 12 years of his life in Mougins village).

The founder of the museum is Christian Levett, a British investment manager with an interest in history and art. A collector since childhood, in 2009 he formed the museum to place his antiquity and classical art collection on public display. The Musée de Mougins was created by remodelling a 600m2 medieval edifice to house his collection. The building itself used to be the village prison in medieval times, it was then turned into a mill before becoming a private residence in the 1950s. The interior was entirely renovated to display the collection while the façade remains in its original style.

The museum’s director is Leisa Paoli.

Concept

Although the majority of objects on display are antiquities, the museum embraces a concept of displaying ancient, neo-classical, modern and contemporary art side by side to show the pervasive and lasting influence of the ancient world. Thus works by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Damien Hirst and others are included in the museum alongside their ancient inspirations.

This dialogue and fusion between ancient and modern is particularly clear in the museum where, for example, depictions of the Greek Goddess Aphrodite by Warhol, Dalí and Yves Klein accompany 1st and 2nd Century AD depictions of the Goddess, in marble and in bronze.

History

Founder, Christian Levett, a philanthropist in the field, sponsored multiple exhibitions at The British Museum, Royal Academy, National Gallery, Sir John Soane’s Museum and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He has funded archaeological works in the UK, Spain, Italy and Egypt and sponsored academic scholarships at Wolfson College and The Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. He has aided curatorial funding at The Ashmolean, The British Museum, and The British School at Rome.

As well as this, he has funded renovation works at The Charterhouse Museum London, Charterhouse School Surrey, The National Gallery and the chapel Notre Dame de Vie in Mougins, and has sponsored conferences at King’s College London, Senate House UCL and at The Mougins Museum. He is a member of the Arms and Armour Committee at The Metropolitan Museum of New York and member of The Board of Visitors at The Ashmolean Museum Oxford and is a past board member of The Hadrian’s Wall Trust. Levett is also an Honorary Fellow of The Ashmolean Museum, an honorary fellow of Wolfson College Oxford and a member of the Oxford University Chancellors Court of Benefactors.

On 29 October 2019 Levett consigned for sale at Christie's a marble statue of the Emperor Hadrian from his collection, known as the Cobham Hall Hadrian, to benefit the Museum.[1]

Collection

The MACM is spread over four floors chronologically from the crypt to the second floor as follows: The Egyptian Gallery, in the crypt, depicts the theme of the afterlife with funerary masks, numerous other ancient artefacts and a sarcophagus, punctuated with works from Chagall, Calder, Rubens and Cocteau. The People and Personalities Gallery on the ground floor presents busts and statues of historical figures from ancient Greece and Rome, their influence highlighted by sculptures of Sosno, Arman, Quinn and Hirst. The Gods and Goddesses Gallery, on the first floor, displays Greek and Roman bronze and marble statues, heads and busts, pottery, glass and silverware, an extensive collection of coins and an antique jewellery display case. Works by neo-classical and modern artists such as Renoir, Rodin, Klein, Warhol, Picasso, Modigliani, Braque and Dalí are also exhibited in the museum. The Armoury, on the second floor, displays the largest private collection of Greek and Roman arms and armour in the world.

  • The Egyptian Gallery
  • The Gods and Goddesses Gallery
  • The Armoury

Publications

The MACM has produced several publications, including:

  • Mougins Museum of Classical Art, 2011, edited by M. Merrony
  • La Collection Famille Levett, 2012, edited by M. Merrony and translated by C. Dauphin
  • Animals in the Ancient World, 2014, C. Dauphin
  • Pompeii in Pictures, 2015, K. Schörle
  • Les Animaux dans le Monde Antique, 2016, C. Dauphin
  • Dufy Dessine le Sud, 2019, F. Guillon Laffaille

Exhibitions

The permanent collection at the MACM is constantly evolving. New pieces are acquired with a view to sustaining and developing the museum’s concept of the fusion of ancient and modern art and the influence that Antiquity has had on subsequent artistic creation. The Museum has also hosted and been otherwise involved in many temporary exhibitions:

Exhibitions at the MACM
  • Doric, Sean Scully. 12 July - 29 September 2013
  • Vessels, Gary Komarin. 1 May – 29 June 2014
  • Layers of Time, Alexander Mihaylovich. 10 April - 14 June 2015
  • Pompeii in pictures, Giorgio Sommer. 19 June – 2 August 2015
  • Animal, The Levett Bestiary collection. February – June 2016
  • Past is present, Léo Caillard. 16 March – 27 May 2018
  • Bleu-Topique, Johan Van Mullem. 16 November 2018 – 17 March 2019
  • Dufy dessine le Sud (Dufy depicts the South), Raoul Dufy. 23 March - 1 September 2019

'Hors Les Murs' external exhibitions
  • Mythes et Héros (Myths and Heroes), 14 April – 28 May 2012

A collaboration with the town of Mougins at the Espace Culturel de Mougins

  • Picasso à Mougins (Picasso in Mougins), 28 March – 12 May 2013

A collaboration with the town of Mougins at the Espace Culturel de Mougins

  • Picasso at the Mas Candille, Lucien Clergue, 15 – 26 May 2013

A collaboration with the 5* Relais & Chateaux hotel Le Mas Candille at Le Mas Candille, Mougins

  • Sacha Sosno. Un hommage, 8 May – 15 June 2014

A collaboration with the town of Mougins at the Espace Culturel de Mougins

  • Mougins Monumental 2015, 4 April – 30 August 2015

A collaboration with the town of Mougins - open air exhibition in Mougins Village

  • Ici et maintenant (Here and now), 15 September – 31 December 2016

A collaboration between the FRAC, the town of Mougins, and the association MVE (Mougins Village Energy).

  • Mougins Monumental 2016, 5 March – 29 May 2016

A collaboration with the town of Mougins - open air exhibition in Mougins Village

  • The Classical Now, 2 March – 28 April 2018

A collaboration with King’s College of London at The Arcade at Bush House & The Inigo Rooms, Somerset House East Wing King’s College London, UK

Loans

The MACM's important loan programme has seen numerous artefacts and artworks on loan to the following establishments:

Prizes and accolades
  • Winner of the Apollo’s Museum Opening of the Year award in 2011.[2]
  • Winner of the Nouveau Tourisme Culturel award Ken d’Or 2012.[3]
  • Nominated for the European Museum of the Year award 2013[4]
  • Nominated in the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality category at the CLIC Patrimoine and Innovation(s) 2017 awards.
  • TripAdvisor’s Certificates of Excellence in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018
  • Obtained the government-approved brand ‘Quality Tourism’ in 2016.
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References
  1. "A ROMAN MARBLE STATUE OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN , REIGN 117-138 A.D." www.christies.com. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  2. "The Goppion Journal". Goppion. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  3. "Les Ken d'Or 2012! - Tourisme Culturel". Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  4. "Museum of Classical Art in Mougins nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award". www.frenchrivieracruiseclub.com. Retrieved 28 April 2020.

2. "L'Antiquité au goût du jour", Connaissance des Arts, July–August 2012

3. "J’ai fait un rêve…", Zibeline Magazine, June 2012

4. "The Acquisitive Gene", Apollo Magazine, 1 February 2012

5. "The French Collection", The Financial Times, 30 December 2011

6. "Museum opening of the Year Apollo Magazine", Apollo Magazine, 1 December 2011

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