Some of the biggest names in 20th-century European sculpture, including Georges Braque, Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti, came together to help create La Fondation Maeght, which has become France’s most important art foundation and is among the world’s leading cultural institutions.

La Fondation was established by Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, a visionary couple who were publishers and art dealers, and who represented and were friends with some of the most important artists of the era, including Braque, Miró and Giacometti, as well as Alexander Calder, Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall, and many others. 

La Fondation Maeght was opened on July 26, 1964, by Charles de Gaulle’s legendary Culture Minister André Malraux, a close friend of the Maeghts. It was France’s very first private art institution and was modelled on American institutions such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Barnes Collection and the Phillips Collection, which the couple visited during their frequent trips to the US in the 1950s.

Mr Adrien Maeght, son of Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, which is composed of 11 members, including three representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the Interior Ministry, four members of the Maeght family and four qualified personalities. Nicolas Gitton has been director of the Fondation since 2018.

Located 25 km from Nice, La Fondation Maeght welcomes many visitors every year to this unique architectural complex, showing modern and contemporary art in all its diversity.