The gallery that was built by 20th century modern artists

Amy Fleming visits the Maeght Foundation as it celebrates its 60th birthday with an exhibition that recalls the closeness its founders shared with painters such as Matisse and Braque

- Amy Fleming

On a sun-drenched hilltop above the medieval village of SaintPaul-de-Vence in the south of France, there’s a space where you can see works by the great 20th-century modern artists like Chagall, Giacometti, Miró, Kandinsky, Calder and Braque outside of monolithic national galleries, in their natural habitat. Here sits the Maeght Foundation, which many of the artists helped to create.

At its 1964 grand opening, jazz great Ella Fitzgerald sang. This summer, it celebrates its 60th birthday with two new grand openings: a blockbuster exhibition and a stunning extension, hacked out of the rocks beneath the original building, with glass fronts looking out onto steep, pine forests like a Bond villain’s lair. And it’s still a family affair.

The late gallerists and lithographers Marguerite and Aimé Maeght decided to build the foundation on the same plot as their family home, partly on the advice of Georges Braque. They had lost their youngest son, Bernard, to leukaemia in 1953, and the pioneer of Cubism suggested they embark on something bigger than themselves to help get through the pain.

Their extended family of artists chipped in: Miró dreamt up a sculpture-filled labyrinth in the garden; Giacometti designed the benches, light fittings, door handles and café chairs; Braque conceived a fish mosaic for a tranquil pond, along with a stainedglass window for the chapel, reconstructed from ancient ruins found when excavating the site. When you pass through the gates of the foundation, you feel as though you’ve stepped through a portal into the artists’ playground.