Hommage à Maurice Girardin : collectionneur, galeriste et mécène

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris presents, from 30 October 2025 to 28 June 2026, an exhibition devoted to Maurice Girardin, a collector, gallerist and patron whose bequest (Raoul Dufy, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani...) enabled the creation of the museum.

A dentist by profession, Maurice Girardin began collecting in 1916 and in 1920 opened his own gallery, La Licorne, where he dedicated himself to promoting young contemporary artists. Upon his death in 1951, he left the City of Paris a collection of more than 500 works. Through this gesture, he hoped to see a museum of modern art established in the capital, a project he had supported since the 1920s. Nearly 380 works joined the collections of the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 1953.

Initially shown at the Petit Palais between 1954 and 1957, the collection led the City of Paris to hasten the completion of the Museum of Modern Art, whose construction had begun in 1936, in order to house it. The museum opened its doors in July 1961.

An unprecedented archive of Maurice Girardin was acquired in 2023. These documents shed new light on his collection and on his place in the history of artistic patronage during the interwar years. About a hundred works from his bequest are presented in this hang of the permanent collections, accompanied by archival materials and illustrated books.

This exhibition highlights the aesthetic affinities of this collector: Georges Rouault, Marcel Gromaire, André Derain, Ossip Zadkine, Chaïm Soutine, Bernard Buffet. It also evokes his early interest in non‑European arts and his curiosity as a bibliophile.