Musée Maillol, Paris

The Musée Maillol is a private art museum at 59-61 rue de Grenelle in Paris's 7th arrondissement, devoted to the sculptor Aristide Maillol and to large temporary exhibitions of modern art. It was founded by Dina Vierny, Maillol's model and later a dealer and collector. It is closed for renovation until 13 January 2027, when it reopens with an exhibition on Dina Vierny.

Vierny posed for Maillol in the 1930s. In 1964 she set up a foundation to promote his work, and she spent more than fifteen years restoring the Hôtel Bouchardon with the architect Pierre Devinoy. The museum opened on 20 January 1995. The 18th-century Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons stands next door, and in the basement the restaurant occupies the former cabaret La Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons, opened in 1951. The museum reopened in 2021, run by Vierny's heirs with the Belgian cultural company Tempora. From the 2027 reopening, artistic direction passes to her grandsons, Pierre and Alexandre Lorquin.

Maillol's nudes and Vierny's naive painters

The permanent rooms show Maillol's sculpture, painting, drawing, engraving and decorative work, including original plasters and terracottas and his monumental female nudes. Vierny's own collection adds Henri Rousseau and other naive painters, along with works by Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rodin and Kandinsky.

Much of the building's 4,250 square metres goes to temporary exhibitions. The reopening show, Dina Vierny, l'art et la liberté, curated by Thierry Dufrêne, fills all three levels with paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and unpublished archives that follow her from model to Resistance member, dealer and collector. The renovation adds new reception areas, public access to a 300-square-metre courtyard and a basement restaurant, PADAM. A Séraphine de Senlis retrospective made with the Centre Pompidou-Metz is planned next.