The museum dedicated to women artists opens its doors in the former village of Picasso.

Inspired by the first museum in the world entirely dedicated to women artists, the <a href="https://nmwa.org">National Museum of Women in the Arts</a> in Washington, DC, in the United States, the <a href="https://famm.com/fr-fr">FAMM museum</a> (Femmes Artistes du Mus&eacute;e de Mougins) aims to be its European counterpart. This summer, after a magnificent inauguration on the day of the summer solstice, this private museum welcomes the general public by presenting around a hundred eclectic works of painting, sculpture and photography.
Spanning four levels, it traces the major movements in <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/on-foot-jonathan-anderson-s-exhibition-at-offer-waterman-gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">modern art</a> from the end of the 19th century to contemporary art and presents a comprehensive look from impressionism to surrealism, from abstract expressionism to figurative art from the 60s, until the new trends of the 21st century. A subtle selection of key artists such as <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/portraits/frida-kahlo-quotes-artist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Frida Kahlo</a>, Dora Maar, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, L&eacute;onor Fini, Marie Laurencin and Fran&ccedil;oise Gilot mixes with the aesthetics of contemporaries such as Marina Abramović, Tracey Emin, Shirin Neshat, Cecily Brown, Nan Goldin Jenny Saville and Tatiana Trouv&eacute;. Among more than five hundred works available, this museum highlighting the work of women was born from the passion of a great London financier, Christian Levett. The museum management will draw on its large private collection throughout the year.

Private tour with Christian Levett, founder of the museum © photo credit David Marconi, 2024

Christian Levett is not a businessman like any other. Trader and founder of Clive Capital, ranked 17th in Forbes, this billionaire is also passionate about history. To entertain himself from the intense world of finance, he found refuge in art and invested himself in a philanthropic commitment. For more than thirty years, he has avidly collected works of art, starting with marble busts of antiquity, classical paintings then major works of modern art, pop art and contemporary, among the artists essentials such as Pablo Picasso, <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/andy-warhol-exhibition-puglia-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andy Warhol</a> and Damien Hirst.
As a child he collected coins and medals and visited London museums, the British Museum and the Wallace Collection. At the age of twenty-five, he lived in Paris where he discovered the Louvre Museum, Roman and Greek art and classical paintings. Self-taught, Mr. Levett purchased his first works, Flemish and Italian paintings from the 17th and 19th centuries. He pursued his passion through Egyptian antiquities, baroque works, masters of classicism and impressionism, including the great names of the new realists such as Yves Klein. In total, he has accumulated nearly 2,000 works which he keeps in his private residences or carefully in storage facilities.

In 2012, he discovered an important book about the New York <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/art/interview-eva-fabbris-candice-lin-amy-lincoln-sang-a-han" target="_blank" rel="noopener">women artists</a> of the 1950s who changed the art history movement, Ninth Street Women , and found new inspiration ignored by the general public. Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Grace Hartigan were part of the new wave of great American abstract painters, most doomed to remain in the shadow of their husbands such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Mr. Levett was fascinated by their little-known works and, in a desire to help redress an imbalance in art history, he decided to devote himself entirely to accumulating works by women.
Today, his collection includes more than five hundred works, which he justifies by their high museum quality, especially more affordable than their male contemporaries. Since 2021, he has organized private visits to his palazzo in Florence, entirely decorated with works by women, to groups of patrons, academics and collectors. In his room there is a large oil painting by Cecily Brown to which he is particularly attached. In 2023, he sold much of his first so-called collection from his classic 'frantic' collecting period at Christie's and published an essential book entitled Abstract Expressionism: Women .
Initially opened in 2011 as the Mus&eacute;e d'Art Classique de Mougins, the museum's rooms have been transformed into a tour de force with nearly nine months of work. The FAMM is thus part of a global dynamic of promoting women artists like the Frauenmuseum in Bonn and numerous temporary exhibitions dedicated to these &ldquo;forgotten&rdquo; women in major museums around the world: the Mus&eacute;e d'Orsay, the Mus&eacute;e d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Center Pompidou, the Denver Museum, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Royal Academy in London, and many others.

During the private inauguration, Mr. Levett welcomed a small group of guests for a privileged guided tour filled with anecdotes that he knows about all the works and which he shares with a certain pride. The plaster orthopedic corset that Frida Kahlo wore in her hospital bed and which she painted with the image of the child in her womb who never saw the light of day, the painting by Lee Krasner called Prophecy which was conceived shortly before the tragic death of her husband Jackson Pollock in a brutal car accident alongside his lover. Or the painting by Miriam Shapiro previously exhibited at <a href="http://moma">MoMA</a> (The Museum of Modern Art) in New York, which in its treatise on painting seems to reveal women's bodies camouflaged under abstract gestures. Works by British artist Tracey Emin previously owned by pop star George Michael, a composer and musician respected by the collector. And Cecily Brown's painting titled Couple which will shortly return to her palazzo bedroom. He naturally explains that at the beginning of his life as a collector he did not make a distinction between genres, and that it was while reading a great classic of art history that he asked himself the question: &ldquo; But where are the women?&rdquo;
A private cocktail followed in the lounges and on the terraces of the legendary and prestigious restaurant <a href="https://www.amandier.fr/histoire.php">L'Amandier de Mougins</a> . Created in the 1970s by starred chef Roger Verg&eacute;, it is ranked in the Michelin guides and Gault &amp; Millau under the new management of Alain Ducasse who takes over the kitchens. Overlooking the heights of the village with a breathtaking view, the evening of FAMM festivities was accompanied by a jazz group and DJs. More than 280 guests from around the world were in attendance, including Katy Hessel, famous British author of <a href="https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/book">The History of Art Without Men</a> , numerous American art consultants and leading New York gallerist Christine Berry of <a href="https://www.berrycampbell.com/gallery">Berry Campbell Gallery</a> , specializing in the representation of female artists from the period of Abstract Expressionist art.
In the village of Mougins, the passion for art has been anchored there since the end of the 1930s with the arrival of Picasso, during his various stays in the company of his muse Dora Maar as well as his artist friends such as Paul &Eacute;luard, Man Ray and Jean Cocteau. In 1961, he acquired the Mas Notre-Dame de Vie and settled there permanently until his death in April 1973. Since then, this village perched in the heights of Cannes, has become a favorite place for artists and frequented by many personalities such as Coco Chanel and Winston Churchill who stayed there.

For the fifty years of Picasso's death, the city organized a series of exhibitions, screenings and exclusive visits to allow the public to immerse themselves in the life of the master in Mougins. Also making room for contemporary artists, the British sculptor <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bethcarterartist/">Beth Carter</a> , fascinated like Picasso by mythology, is invited to exhibit her monumental works of Minotaur near the painter's home. It is also with an artist residency in mind that in 2026 the FAMM museum will host twenty-five sculptures of minotaurs by the artist in the streets of the village.
To see the entire FAMM collection, you would have to make several visits as this museum aims to become a new encyclopedia of art created by women artists. Including many emerging and established contemporaries such as the Franco-Senegalese photographer Delphine Diallo and the former Russian model Masha Rudenko or the nonagenarian American Susan Weil, the list is long: Ethel Schwabacher, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Lalan (Xie Jinglan), Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Alma Thomas, Howardena Pindell, Marlene Dumas, Carrie Mae Weems, Sarah Lucas, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Colomba, among many others.
Visitors will be able to delight in new exhibitions of rotating works throughout the year and be surrounded by a team of dedicated guides under the direction of Leisa Paoli, who works to create this showcase of a fantastic collection at the heart of Mougins with its founder for more than ten years. A real pleasure!

FAMM Museum, 32 Rue du Commandeur, 06250 Mougins Open every day from June 21 to September 30 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and from October 1 to June 20 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The FAMM museum opens its doors to the public in Mougins

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