Museum of Naive Arts Nice

The Museum of Naive Arts in Nice is located in the “Castle of St. Helena” – an ancient mansion once owned by the famous French perfumer François Coty, next door to the Church of St. Helena. The collection contains about 600 works: paintings, sculpture, graphics) by artists of the XIX-XX centuries from Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean Islands, Africa.

The Museum of Naive Art was opened in 1982. At the heart of his collection is the collection of a native of Chisinau, artist and art critic Anatole Zhakovsky, who since 1942 has devoted himself entirely to the study and collection of works of naive art. Within its walls there is a huge collection of works in the style of Art Brut, exhibits of which Zhakovsky found wherever he could, even buying at flea markets.

The museum collection is interesting because it unites artists from different parts of the world who created at the same time, do not suspect of each other’s existence, and, at the same time, created works that are strikingly close in spirit and mood. A particular irony of fate is that the villa, which now houses paintings of poor and ordinary people, such as American farmer Grandma Moses and Croatian carpenter Ivan Rabuzin, has always belonged to noble and rich people.