Musée Picasso Antibes

Located in the 14th-century Château Grimaldi, the museum houses over 230 works by Picasso, including paintings, sculptures, and ceramics.

Planning your visit

Picasso was given the Château Grimaldi in Antibes as a studio in 1946 — he had no space large enough to work, the town offered him the empty fourteenth-century castle on the ramparts above the sea, and he spent an intensely productive autumn there. When he left he donated everything he had made in the building to the town, and it became the first museum dedicated to him anywhere.

The work from that period is distinctive: light, mythological, joyful, made on fibre cement and plywood because canvas was scarce after the war, full of fauns, centaurs, goats and sea creatures. La Joie de Vivre is the emblem. Over 230 works including ceramics from his Vallauris years and sculpture fill the castle.

The setting is inseparable from the art. The terrace overlooks the Mediterranean directly, with Nicolas de Staël and Germaine Richier sculptures placed against the sea, and the light in the rooms is the light the paintings were made in.

Bookable options include entry and drawing tours led by local artists working in the castle. Current availability is shown below.