The Musée Cantini is a museum in Marseilles that has been open to the public since 1936. The museum specializes in modern art, especially paintings from the first half of the twentieth century.
The building
The musée Cantini building was built in 1694 for the Compagnie du Cap Nègre, , specializing in coral fishing on the northern coasts of Tunisia and in the trade of wool, wax and leather. The company ran into financial difficulties and the building was sold in 1709 to Dominique de Montgrand great-grandfather of Jean-Baptiste-Jacques-Guy-Thérèse de Montgrand, future Mayor of Marseille. The building was then sold to Louis Joseph Chaudoin in 1801, and to Dieudonné Bernadac in 1816. In 1888, it was acquired by Jules Cantini who bequeathed it to the City of Marseille in 1916, with the stipulation that it was to become a museum of decorative arts. The museum was opened in 1936.
The Collection
The Musée Cantini has one of the largest public collections in France of the 1900–1980 period. A wide variety of artists is represented, including Charles Camoin, Raoul Dufy, Albert Gleizes, Henri Laurens, Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Jean Hélion, Alberto Magnelli, Amédée Ozenfant, Max Ernst, André Masson, Simon Simon-Auguste, Jacques Thévenet, Victor Brauner, Joan Miró, Jean Arp.
Pointillisme, fauvisme et cubisme
Paul Signac, La Corne d'or, Matin, 1907 et Entrée du Port de Marseille, 1918
André Derain, Pinède, Cassis, 1907
Raoul Dufy, Landscapes of l'Estaque, 1908
Albert Gleizes, L'Ecolier and Etude pour Femme assise, c.1920
Emile Othon Friesz, Auguste Chabaud, Charles Camoin, Alfred Lombard
Inter-War Period
Oskar Kokoschka, Le port de Marseille, 1925
Jean Hélion, Composition verticale, 1936
Alberto Magnelli, Pierres n°2, 1932
Jeanne-Laure Garcin, Les Hommes et la machine, 1932
Julio Gonzalez, Danseuse à la palette, vers 1934
Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Jacques Villon ...
Surrealism
Max Ernst, Monument aux oiseaux, 1927
Jacques Hérold, Les Têtes, 1939
André Masson, Antille, 1943, Le Terrier, 1946
Jean Arp, Genèse, 1944
Joseph Cornell, Flat sand box, vers 1950
Roberto Matta, Contra vosotros asesinos de palomas, 1950
Wifredo Lam, Francis Picabia, Victor Brauner ...
From World War II to 1980
Pablo Picasso, Tête de femme souriante, 1943; Fernand Léger, Nature morte au couteau, 1945; Nicolas de Staël, Harmonie rouge, bleue et noire, 1951; Alberto Giacometti, Portrait de Diego, 1957; Roland Bierge, Nature morte à la Théière brune, 1957; Balthus, Nature morte à la lampe, 1958, Le Baigneur, 1960; Jean Dubuffet, Vénus du trottoir, 1946, Brouette en surplomb I, 1964; Francis Bacon, Autoportrait, 1976; Antonin Artaud, Vieira da Silva... Jean-Charles Blais, s.t, huile sur bois et collage, 1986;
Drawings
The museum has drawings by André Derain, Pierre Bonnard, André Masson, Francis Picabia, Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Edward Hopper, Victor Brauner, Jean Dubuffet...
Degas theft
In 2009, the museum was exhibiting Edgar Degas's pastel on monotype Les Choristes, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. It was stolen at the end of the year; the investigation went cold until 2018, when customs officers recovered it from the luggage compartment of a bus outside Paris.
Bibliography
Régis Bertrand, Lucien Tirone, Le guide de Marseille, édition la manufacture, Besançon, 1991,