Musée du Montparnasse

The Musée du Montparnasse was a museum devoted to the art and history of the Montparnasse quarter's avant-garde heyday in the first half of the twentieth century. Located at 21 Avenue du Maine in Paris's 15th arrondissement, it opened on 28 May 1998 and closed in 2015. Founded by journalist Roger Pic and art critic Jean-Marie Drot, the museum occupied the former studio of Russian painter and sculptor Marie Vassilieff, a site that had served as a legendary gathering place for artists in the early 1900s. Its mission was to preserve and present the history of the international artists who lived and worked in Montparnasse during its emergence as a center of modern art.

The museum was inaugurated on 28 May 1998 through the efforts of Roger Pic and Jean-Marie Drot, who established it as a nonprofit venture under the association Les amis du musée du Montparnasse. The project arose from a desire to commemorate the quarter's extraordinary artistic past, specifically by preserving the legacy of Marie Vassilieff's atelier. In the early twentieth century, Vassilieff had operated a private club and canteen in this space, providing inexpensive food and drink to struggling artists. Before and during World War I, this canteen became a crucial meeting point for painters including Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine, and Pablo Picasso. By 1913, the canteen's reputation was such that Fernand Léger delivered two lectures there on modern art. The museum's later history proved difficult. According to French Wikipedia, the City of Paris, which owned the property, declined to renew the lease, and the museum closed on 30 September 2013. The Musée de La Poste briefly occupied the premises from February 2013 to February 2014. The association Bétonsalon - Centre d'art et de recherche won a subsequent competition launched by the city, and in September 2015 opened the Villa Vassilieff, a visual arts space focused on the history of the Montparnasse quarter with artist and researcher residencies. This successor institution closed permanently in 2020.

The museum was dedicated to art of the first half of the twentieth century, the period when Montparnasse served as the center of the contemporary avant-garde. Its programming combined historical narrative with contemporary engagement, offering visitors a history of the multitude of international artists who came to live and work in Montparnasse at the beginning of the twentieth century. The museum organized temporary exhibitions of works by Montparnasse artists, both past and present, bridging historical documentation with living artistic practice. A membership program provided monthly evening meetings where members gathered for cultural events, fostering ongoing community engagement with the quarter's artistic heritage.

The museum maintained a permanent exhibition devoted to Marie Vassilieff, whose own work as a painter and sculptor was presented alongside the history of her atelier. Works by Edgar Stoëbel were also exhibited. The museum's significance derived less from a large permanent collection than from its role as a site-specific institution where the physical space itself, saturated with the memory of Modigliani, Soutine, Picasso, and Léger, constituted the primary historical artifact.

The museum was situated at 21 Avenue du Maine, accessible via a private road also known as the Chemin du Montparnasse or villa Marie-Vassilieff, an impasse in the Necker neighborhood of the 15th arrondissement. The building dated from 1900 and had originally served as Marie Vassilieff's studio. In this space, Vassilieff had operated her private Academie Vassilieff and the famous wartime canteen. The intimate scale of the former atelier, hidden down a private passage, preserved something of the bohemian character that had defined Montparnasse in its artistic prime.

The Musée du Montparnasse is no longer open to the public. It closed in 2015 following the earlier termination of its lease in September 2013. During its operation, it was open Tuesday through Sunday from 12:30 to 19:00. The institution was nonprofit and run by the association Les amis du musée du Montparnasse. Its official website, now archived, was accessible at www.villavassilieff.net, a domain that reflects the site's subsequent transformation into the Villa Vassilieff project. The City of Paris remained the property owner throughout the museum's existence and its subsequent incarnations.