The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Half an hour’s walk from the ramparts of Saint-Paul-de-Vence along the Chemin Sainte-Claire, the Fondation Maeght (also known as the Maeght Foundation) keeps more than 13,000 works of modern and contemporary art beneath its pines. Aimé and Marguerite Maeght opened it in 1964, and it was the first private foundation devoted to art in France. The building and its gardens were designed together with the artists themselves, Miró, Giacometti, Braque and Chagall among them, who left works made for these very walls.

The Fondation Maeght is open every day from 10 am to 6 pm and closes at 7 pm in summer

The Fondation is open every day, from 10 am to 6 pm from September through June, and from 10 am to 7 pm in July and August. On December 24 and 31 it closes early, at 4 pm. A full-price ticket costs €18 and a reduced ticket €14 (young people aged 16 to 18, students and job seekers, with proof), and admission is free for children under 16 and for visitors with disabilities. Tickets are sold on site or on the Fondation’s website, and no reservation is needed except for groups.

The tourist office suggests allowing an hour and a half for the visit, with an audio guide if you like. Backpacks are not allowed in the galleries and must be left in the cloakroom, and pets are not admitted on the grounds. Elevators serve all the exhibition spaces, and the outdoor areas are wheelchair accessible, except for the Miró Labyrinth.

Parking at the Fondation is free

The Fondation has its own free parking lot, and a secondary lot takes over when the main one is closed. From the A8 highway, take exit 47 coming from Marseille or exit 48 coming from Nice or Italy; the RD 436 toward La Colle-sur-Loup and Vence gets you there in about fifteen minutes. By bus, Zou! line 655 from Cagnes-sur-Mer stops at Fondation Maeght, a steep ten- to twelve-minute walk from the entrance, and at Saint-Paul Village, ten minutes on foot along the Chemin Sainte-Claire.

From the village, the tourist office has marked out a walk of about thirty minutes that starts at the Place du Jeu de Boules and climbs the Chemin Sainte-Claire. It passes the Saint-Charles-Saint-Claude chapel, whose murals were repainted in 2012 by the Nice artist Paul Conte and which looks out over the village, the hills and the sea, then the chapel of Notre-Dame de la Gardette. Two stops along the way are devoted to Chagall, and blue signs lead the rest of the way to the Fondation. This journal has a separate article on the village and La Colombe d’Or.

The Fondation grew out of a loss and a friendship with painters

In 1953, Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, art dealers and publishers in Paris, lost their younger son Bernard to leukemia at the age of eleven. Georges Braque then urged the couple to create a place for modern art on their property in Saint-Paul. “Do it, and I will help you,” he told them, and Fernand Léger promised: “I’ll come with my paints and paint the rocks.” A trip to the United States, where the Maeghts saw the Barnes, Phillips and Guggenheim collections, settled their decision.

Joan Miró introduced them to the Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert, who had built his studio in Palma de Mallorca. The novelist André Malraux, France’s minister of cultural affairs at the time, inaugurated the Fondation on July 28, 1964, and declared in his opening speech: “This is not a museum.”

The artists built the Fondation alongside the architect

Sert designed a building of brick, terracotta and concrete that reinterprets the Mediterranean village. Its two large white roof vaults, which collect rainwater for the pools and shade the galleries, have become the symbol of the place, and “light traps” bring indirect daylight into the rooms. Each artist took a share of the site. Giacometti wanted his sculptures gathered in the courtyard that bears his name, and he chose the spot for each one himself; the Fondation owns both versions of Walking Man. In the Labyrinth, Miró set out twenty works in ceramic, marble, iron and bronze, and a white line painted along the low walls serves as Ariadne’s thread, leading to The Arch, which represents the Minotaur.

Chagall designed the mosaic The Lovers for the bookshop wall, showing the Maeght couple welcoming visitors, and Braque designed the Fish pool. The Saint-Bernard chapel, named for the saint whose name the boy bore, holds a 12th-century Spanish Christ given by the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga, Stations of the Cross carved in slate by Raoul Ubac, and Braque’s White Bird stained-glass window.

Ellsworth Kelly fills the galleries until November 15, 2026

Until November 15, 2026, “Ellsworth Kelly: At the Edge of Water,” curated by Éric de Chassey, is the first exhibition to explore the place of water in the American artist’s work. Kelly showed at the Galerie Maeght as early as 1948 and stayed with the family in Saint-Paul several times. In the Anny Courtade room, the photographer Peter Knapp shows, until November 8, the pictures he took in 1965 of the collection of fashion designer André Courrèges. In winter, the Fondation displays selected pieces from its collection in the galleries and the garden; its program after November 15 had not yet been announced in early October.

Since July 2024, two galleries designed by Silvio d’Ascia, 500 square meters in all, have extended beneath the Miró and Giacometti courtyards. They show the collection, from Kandinsky to Soulages and from Joan Mitchell to Riopelle, along with a selection of artists’ books from Aimé Maeght’s library.

Every summer from 1965 to 1970, the Giacometti courtyard was the stage for the Nuits de la Fondation Maeght, which brought in Terry Riley, Pierre Boulez and Cecil Taylor, and both Albert Ayler and the Sun Ra Arkestra recorded albums there in 1970. On October 16, 2026, at 7:30 pm, Olivier Martinaud and Nicolas Repac read “The Studio of Alberto Giacometti” by the writer Jean Genet.

Practical information

Fondation Maeght, 623 Chemin des Gardettes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, +33 4 93 32 81 63, info@fondation-maeght.com. Open every day, 10 am to 6 pm from September through June and 10 am to 7 pm in July and August; closes at 4 pm on December 24 and 31.

Tickets: €18, reduced €14, free for children under 16. Buy on site or online; no reservation needed.

Parking: free parking at the Fondation. A8 highway, exit 47 or 48, then the RD 436. Zou! bus 655 from Cagnes-sur-Mer, Fondation Maeght stop.

Guided tours: the Saint-Paul-de-Vence tourist office runs tours of the collection, +33 4 93 32 86 95.

Restaurant: Sous les Pins, the café-restaurant run by the chefs of Les Agitateurs in Nice, open every day under the Aleppo pines, with furniture by Diego Giacometti, +33 4 93 32 45 96.

Hours and prices checked in October 2026; please confirm before you go.

Where to stay: Orion Treehouses puts its guests up in the trees, nine minutes from the Fondation

In the town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a nine-minute drive from the Fondation, Orion Treehouses has four treehouses built of cedar wood, each named after a character from The Jungle Book, set in seven thousand square meters of forest. They surround a natural, chlorine-free pool, filtered by plants and fed by a waterfall, and each treehouse has its own outdoor kitchen. Diane Van den Berge, who opened the property in 2004, welcomes guests for a 2026 season that runs through December 31.