Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume description and photos - France: Paris (Topic)

Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume description and photos - France: Paris. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume.

Photo and description

The National Gallery of Modern Art, Jeu de Pom, is located in the building that Napoleon III built in 1861 in the Tuileries Garden for a ball game (jeu de paume).

This is an old game, the ancestor of tennis, widespread in Europe since the XIII century. Mentioned in Dumas's novel The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan played it before an audience with the king. Napoleon III, the last emperor of France, also played it. The building he built, in fact, a tennis court, in its architecture was a twin of the Orangerie, located on the other side of the garden.

Since 1909, the Jeux-de-Pom building has been used for various exhibitions. In 1922, after a large-scale reconstruction, the gallery exhibited its permanent collection, without abandoning temporary exhibitions. During these years, Jeux-de-Pom began to intensively acquire works of outstanding artists - Modigliani, Picasso, Chagall, Soutine, Juan Gris.

During the occupation, the gallery was used by the Nazis as a warehouse for works of art confiscated from the Jewish population. Part of the plundered cultural property was intended for the Fuhrer Museum in Linz. At the same time, the Nazis, who organically did not tolerate the so-called "degenerate art", tried to sell paintings that did not suit them in third countries. Some of the works could not be sold, and on the night of July 27, 1942, they were burned in bonfires near Jeux-de-Pom (among them - the works of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali).

In 1947, the gallery was converted into a museum exhibiting mainly Impressionist works: excellent natural light created ideal conditions for this. But in 1986, the collection of works of the Impressionists was transferred to the Musee d'Orsay, and the ballroom was seriously redesigned by the architect Antoine Stinko with a focus on contemporary art.

Today, not only exhibition premises, but also an audiovisual hall work here , bookstore, cafe. The gallery holds exhibitions of contemporary painting and graphics, photography, films and videos. In contrast to them behind the huge windows of Jeux-de-Pom are the unchanging Tuileries Gardens, Seine, Place de la Concorde.

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Topic: Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume description and photos - France: Paris.