Musée d'art moderne André Malraux

Around 1910, Jean Puy painted a Landscape at Bénodet, purchased by the Algiers museum in 1929. This artwork is painted in exactly the same location as Creek in Brittany, but affords a wider view of the site, with a female figure stretched out under a parasol. It depicts the same pine tree that runs at an angle across the painting from the Senn collection,...

Nini Lopez first appeared in the work of Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) in La Loge (The Theatre Box), painted in 1874. The young woman from Montmartre, cruelly nicknamed Nini-Gueule-de-Raie, or "fish face", is shown alongside the artist's brother. Although the artwork was immediately purchased by the art dealer "le Père Martin", ...

A student of François Rude, Charles Cordier (Cambrai, 1827–Algiers, 1905) occupies a special place in French sculpture of the late 19th century. His 1847 encounter with Seïd Enkess, a former black slave turned model, determined the course of his career and marked the beginnings of his great plan to represent human diversity. His "anthropological...

In 1897, in the wake of his discovery of the Impressionists, Albert Marquet (1875–1947) immersed himself into the heart of the landscape. Trained alongside Matisse in the workshop of painter Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he drew inspiration from the heart of the various districts and neighbouring suburbs of the capital...

The life and work of Henri-Edmond Cross (1856–1910) took a decisive turn in 1891, the year of Seurat's death, when he embraced the Neo-Impressionist movement. This was also the year he left Paris and moved to Saint-Clair, in the Var, near his friend Signac. There he discovered the joys of the Mediterranean countryside, which served as an...

Self-taught, André Derain (1880–1954) was introduced to painting by a friend of Cézanne named Jacomin. A regular visitor to museums, he made acquaintance with Matisse. In 1895, he began working on the landscape of Chatou and the surrounding countryside. Vlaminck became a friend and ally in his fight to free himself from Impressionist formulae....

Widely travelled, Albert Marquet set up his easel in a number of cities around the Mediterranean. He met Marcelle Martinet in Algiers, and married her on February 10, 1923. Their honeymoon took them from Tunis to Carthage, and then to Sidi-Bou-Said, a small village on the west flank of a rocky outcrop. "We are pursuing our exploration and, having left our...

Influenced by the work of Caravaggio, Simon Vouet (1590–1649) moved to Italy in 1612, where he also developed an interest in the work of the Carracci brothers and the Venetian and Flemish colourists. Summoned to Paris by Louis XIII in 1624, he received the title of Premier Peintre du Roi. Many of the leading artists of the 17th century (Le Brun,...

Nicolas de Staël (1914–1955) rose to artistic fame in the mid-20th century. The bulk of his production was concentrated over a fifteen-year period, between 1938–1939 and 1955, the year he took his own life in Antibes. The orphan of a Russian family in exile, he grew up in Brussels, where he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. After several...

Born in Honfleur and schooled in Le Havre, Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) visited Brittany for the first time in 1855 and travelled there regularly for the next three years. Drawn to the picturesque region, he was interested in the simple life of the peasants from the Finistère and proved to be a keen-eyed witness to their way of living. ...

Le Havre is where Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) discovered the sea, on a trip to the Normandy coast in 1841 with his childhood friend Urbain Cuenot. He returned to the shores of the Channel in 1852 and, from 1865 to 1869, sojourned regularly at Le Havre, Honfleur, Trouville, Deauville and Étretat. There is where he painted what he referred to as ...

Far away from Paris, the Creuse, a harsh and hostile land marked by severe winters, began to appear on the walls of the Salon de Paris in 1830. George Sand's novels set in the countryside made the region known and drew the first "open-air" painters to Nohant. Monet stayed in Fresselines from March to May 1889, but he cursed the changeable weather that...

The Waltz was one of the first Nabi paintings by Swiss artist Félix Vallotton (1865–1925). The Nabi movement, which lasted only a few years (1888–1900), advocated a new spiritual impetus by means of art, combining all forms of artistic expression. ...

Born in Paris to an English family, Alfred Sisley (1839–1899) was sent to the United Kingdom when he was eighteen. There is where he discovered, prior to the Impressionists, the work of Turner, who was widely exhibited in London, and the work of Constable, another undisputed master of the English landscape. Continuing financial difficulties quickly...