Ever since the museum was founded, the City of Nantes has continued to develop the collections, particularly by purchasing artworks by living artists. This acquisition policy has sought constantly to add particularly modern and contemporary pieces to the collections. The commitment to bring all the collections together under one roof in the city center inspired the 2011-2017 renovation blueprint. Since then, the Musée des Beaux-Arts has become the Musée d’arts de Nantes.
The Musée des Beaux-Arts
1801: Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Musée des Beaux-Arts;
1810: 1,155 paintings, 64 sculptures and 10,000 prints are acquired from the collection of the Nantes-based diplomat François Cacault;
1891: the city decides to build a venue for keeping and presenting the collection;
1900: the Palais des Beaux-Arts is inaugurated at its current, city-center location.
The Musée d’arts de Nantes
2009: owing to a lack of exhibition space and facilities that a modern site needs (auditorium, educational rooms), a blueprint for restoring and extending the Musée des Beaux-Arts is entrusted to the British design studio Stanton Williams;
2017: a 21st-century museum opens, the Musée d’arts de Nantes! The past and present-day architectural styles resonate with the museum’s collections where past and present interact subtly across the galleries. There is now 30% more exhibition space, with visitors able to tour the Cube, a new building dedicated wholly to contemporary art which henceforth connects the Oratory Chapel to the Palais.
