Matisse Museum

Musée Matisse

A Genoese-style red villa on Cimiez hill housing Matisse's paintings, paper cut-outs and sculptures from every period, next to Roman arena ruins and the monastery where Matisse rests.

The Matisse Museum is located on Cimiez hill north of Nice, in a 17th-century Genoese-style red villa (Villa des Arènes). Matisse lived and worked in Nice from 1917 to 1954, and in his later years lived in the Regina apartment building next to the museum. The collection, donated by the Matisse family, includes oil paintings such as 'Woman Reading in a Green Dress', 236 drawings, 218 prints, 57 sculptures, and his late paper cut-outs such as 'Blue Nude IV' and 'Flowers and Fruit'. It also holds manuscripts and priestly vestments he designed for the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence. The displays trace his evolution from early academic painting through Fauvism to paper cut-outs. Admission is about €10 (included in the €15 three-day Nice museum pass). Opening hours are 10:00–18:00 (until 17:00 from November to April), and it is closed on Tuesdays and some public holidays. The museum sits within the Cimiez Roman arena park, and the surrounding olive grove is a good picnic spot. The garden of the Cimiez convent to the east is free to enter and overlooks Nice. The monastery cemetery holds the graves of Matisse and Raoul Dufy. Getting there: take bus line 5 or 33 from the city centre to the Arènes/Musée Matisse stop, about 20 minutes; on foot from the train station it's about 30 minutes uphill. The Chagall Museum is on the way down the hill, so both can be visited in one morning (a 15-minute walk apart).

Matisse Museum

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