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Musée d'Orsay

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This article is about the museum. For other uses, see D’Orsay (disambiguation).
Musée d'Orsay
Main Façade of the Musée d'Orsay from the Seine
Musée d'Orsay is located in Paris
Musée d'Orsay
Location of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris
Established1986
LocationRue de Lille 75343 Paris, France
TypeArt museum, Design/Textile Museum, Historic site[1]
Visitors3.0 million (2009)[2]
DirectorSerge Lemoine
Public transit accessSolférino
Musée d'Orsay
Websitewww.musee-orsay.fr

The Musée d'Orsay (French pronunciation: [myze dɔʁsɛ]) is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces (the largest in the world) by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.

History

Musée d'Orsay Clock, Victor Laloux, Main Hall

The museum building was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939.

By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles, and as a haven for the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt.

Orsay Museum, seen from the right bank of the Seine river

In 1970, permission was granted to demolish the station but Jacques Duhamel, the then Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was then put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum which would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the Georges Pompidou Centre. This plan was accepted by Georges Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974. In 1978, a competition was organized to design the new museum. ACT Architecture, a team of three young architects (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon, were awarded the contract which involved creating 20,000 sq. m. of new floorspace on four floors. The construction work was carried out by Bouygues.[3] In 1981, the Italian architect, Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the interior including the internal arrangement, decoration, furniture and fittings of the museum. Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive its exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum was officially opened in December 1986 by the then president, François Mitterrand.

The interior of the museum.

The square next to the museum displays six bronze allegorical sculptural groups in a row, originally produced for the Exposition Universelle (1878):

Collection

Vincent van Gogh:
Starry Night Over the Rhone
Arles, September 1888
Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1876
Édouard Manet
The Luncheon on the Grass
1862-3
Gustave Courbet:
The Artist's Studio
detail, 1855
Paul Cézanne:
Card Players 1894-1895
Paul Cézanne:
Apples and Oranges
circa 1899

Paintings: major painters and works represented

Sculptures

Major sculptors includes François Rude, Jules Cavelier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Auguste Rodin, Paul Gauguin, Camille Claudel and Honoré Daumier.

Other works

It also holds collections of:

  • architecture and decorative arts
  • photography

Selected collection highlights

Management

The Directors have been:

  • Françoise Cachin: 1986–1994
  • Henri Loyrette: 1994–2001
  • Serge Lemoine: 2001–2008
  • Guy Cogeval: March 2008–present

See also

References

  1. ^ "Musée d'Orsay: About" (Document). ARTINFO. 2008. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |accessdate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help)
  2. ^ "Exhibition and museum attendance figures 2009" (PDF). London: The Art Newspaper. April 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
  3. ^ Bouygues website: Musée d'Orsay

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Musée d'Orsay.
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