A museum in southern France is switching gears and will reopen next June as Europe’s first museum dedicated solely to the work of women artists.
The privately-owned museum in Mougins has been a museum of antiquities and called itself a ‘museum of classical art.’ The owner, Christian Levett, a British former commodities trader, said its new name would be Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins, and will concentrate on modern and contemporary art by women, including works in his collection by Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Howardena Pindell, Cecily Brown and Nancy Graves.
Several other museums in Europe show women’s art or are dedicated to women, but this is said to be the first in Europe solely focused on women artists and their art. The world’s first museum “dedicated solely to women’s art” is the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington DC. That museum, which opened in 1987 has 6,000 works by over 1,000 female artists.
