Musée national Marc Chagall

The Musée national Marc Chagall stands at 36 Avenue Docteur Ménard, at the corner of Boulevard de Cimiez, in Nice, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. It was conceived by the painter Marc Chagall, who donated his Biblical Message cycle to the French state in 1966 and worked with the architect André Hermant on a purpose-built museum. It opened in 1973, making it one of the first national museums dedicated to a living artist. The building is a low, light-filled structure in a garden with a pool, designed so that the paintings are shown in natural light. The core of the collection is the Biblical Message, seventeen large canvases inspired by Genesis, Exodus and the Song of Songs, painted between 1954 and 1967. The Song of Songs paintings are hung in a separate room. Chagall also designed the museum's stained-glass windows in the concert hall, depicting the Creation, and a mosaic of the prophet Elijah above the pool in the garden. The collection includes gouaches, drawings, lithographs and sculpture, along with temporary exhibitions that place the artist's work in context. The presentation is thematic, centred on the Biblical subjects, and the small scale of the museum gives it a contemplative, almost chapel-like atmosphere. The concert hall hosts music events. The museum has been renovated in stages, with improvements to the garden and galleries. According to the listing used for this guide, hours are 10:00AM to 1:00PM and 2:30PM to 6:00PM from 2 May to 31 October 2026, with shorter afternoon hours from 1 November, and visitors should confirm the weekly closing day. Admission is EUR 10, or EUR 12 during temporary exhibitions, with reduced entry at EUR 8 and free entry for under 18 and on the first Sunday of each month. A visit takes about an hour. The museum is in the Cimiez district and can be reached by bus from the centre.