The museum dedicated to shining a light on women artists opens it's doors in Mougins, Picasso's former home town.&nbsp;

Inspired by the first museum in the world entirely dedicated to women artists, the <a href="https://nmwa.org">National Museum of Women in the Arts</a> in Washington, DC, United States, the <a href="https://famm.com/fr-fr">FAMM museum</a> (Women Artists of the Mougins Museum) aims to be its European counterpart. This summer, after a magnificent opening on the day of the summer solstice, this private museum welcomes the public to discover hundreds of eclectic works in painting, sculpture and photography.
Over four levels, the museum embraces all major movements in modern art from the late 19th century to contemporary art, giving a comprehensive overview from impressionism to surrealism, from abstract expressionism to figurative art from the 60s, ending with the new trends of the 21st century. A subtle selection of key artists such as Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, L&eacute;onor Fini, Marie Laurencin and Fran&ccedil;oise Gilot mixes with the aesthetics of contemporaries such as Marina Abramović, Tracey Emin, Shirin Neshat, Cecily Brown, Nan Goldin Jenny Saville and Tatiana Trouv&eacute;. With over five hundred works available, this museum highlights a collection born from the passion of a successful London trader, Christian Levett. The museum management will draw from his large private collection throughout the year.

Christian Levett is not a businessman like any other. Founder of Clive Capital, ranked 17th in Forbes, this billionaire is also passionate about history. To entertain himself from the intense world of finance, he found refuge in art and invested himself in a philanthropic commitment. For more than thirty years, he has avidly collected works of art, starting with Greek and Roman sculptures, classical paintings followed by major works of modern art, pop art and contemporary, among essential artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.
As a child he collected coins and medals while he visited London museums, the British Museum and the Wallace Collection. At the age of twenty-five, he lived in Paris where he discovered the Louvre Museum, Roman and Greek art and classical paintings. Self-taught, Mr. Levett purchased his first works of art, Flemish and Italian paintings from the 17th and 19th centuries. He pursued his passion through Egyptian antiquities, baroque works, masters of classicism and impressionism, including the great names of the new realists such as Yves Klein. In total, he had accumulated nearly 2,000 works which he kept in his private residences or carefully in storage facilities.
In 2012, he discovered an important book about the New York women artists of the 1950s who changed the movement in art history, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/books/review-ninth-street-women-mary-gabriel-lee-krasner-elaine-de-kooning-joan-mitchell.html">Ninth Street Women</a>, and found a new inspiration lesser known from the general public. Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan were part of the new wave of great American abstract painters, most doomed to remain in the shadow of their husbands ; Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Mr. Levett was fascinated by their stories and, in a desire to help fill a gap in art history, he decided to devote himself entirely to accumulating works by women.

Today, his collection includes more than five hundred works, that he carefully selects for their high museum quality, and especially as he finds them more affordable than their male contemporaries. Since 2021, he has organized private visits to his palazzo in Florence, entirely decorated with works by women to groups of patrons, academics and collectors. In his bedroom, a large oil painting by Cecily Brown features, to which he is particularly attached. In 2023, he sold a large part of his first collection from his &lsquo;period of fanaticism&rsquo; as a collector at <a href="https://www.christies.com/en/stories/christian-levett-property-from-the-mougins-museum-of-classical-art-a84fcc0bcb5c474e8fc56eb3314da081">Christie's</a> and published an essential book entitled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Abstract-Expressionists-Ellen-G-Landau/dp/1858947030">Abstract Expressionism: Women.</a>
Initially opened in 2011 as the Mougins Museum of Classical Art, the entire building has been renovated for nine months into the FAMM museum, thus taking part of a global initiative promoting women artists around the world: the Frauenmuseum in Bonn, the Mus&eacute;e d'Orsay, the Mus&eacute;e of Modern Art of the City of Paris, the Center Pompidou, the Denver Museum, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Royal Academy in London, and many others.
During the private inauguration, Mr. Levett welcomed a small group of guests for a guided tour filled with personal stories that he shared with a certain pride: the orthopedic corset that Frida Kahlo wore in her hospital bed and which she painted with the image of the child in her womb who never saw the light of day; Lee Krasner's painting entitled Prophecy who was conceived shortly before the tragic death of her husband Jackson Pollock in a brutal car accident alongside his lover; or the painting by Miriam Shapiro previously exhibited at the <a href="http://moma">MoMA</a> (The Museum of Modern Art) in New York. Further works by British artist Tracey Emin were previously owned by pop star George Michael, a composer and musician respected by the collector. A Cecily Brown's painting titled Couple who will return shortly to the bedroom of his palazzo. He naturally explains that at the beginning of his life as a collector he did not make a distinction between genres, and that it was while reading a great classic of art history that he asked himself the question: &ldquo; But where are the women?&rdquo;

A private cocktail followed on the terrasse of the legendary and prestigious restaurant <a href="https://www.amandier.fr/histoire.php">The Almond Tree of Mougins</a>. Created in the 1970s by star chef Roger Verg&eacute;, it is ranked in the Michelin guides and Gault &amp; Millau under the new management of Alain Ducasse who takes over the kitchens. Overlooking the heights of the village with a breathtaking view, the evening of FAMM festivities was accompanied by a jazz group and DJs. More than 280 guests from around the world gathered including Katy Hessel, famous British author of <a href="https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/book">The History of Art Without Men</a>, numerous American art consultants and the great New York gallery owner Christine Berry of <a href="https://www.berrycampbell.com/gallery">Berry Campbell Gallery</a>, specializing in the representation of female artists from the abstract expressionist art period.
In the village of Mougins, the passion for art has been anchored since the end of the 1930s with the arrival of Picasso, during his various stays in the company of his muse Dora Maar as well as his artist friends such as Paul &Eacute;luard, Man Ray and Jean Cocteau. In 1961, he acquired the Mas Notre-Dame de Vie and settled there permanently until his death in April 1973. Since then, this village perched in the heights of Cannes, has become a favorite place for artists and frequented by many personalities such as Coco Chanel and Winston Churchill.
For the fifty years anniversary of Picasso's death, the city organized a series of exhibitions, screenings and exclusive tours to allow the public to immerse themselves in the life of the master in Mougins. Highlighting contemporary artists, the British sculptor <a href="https://www.instagram.com/bethcarterartist/">Beth Carter</a>, fascinated like Picasso by mythology, was invited to exhibit her monumental works of Minotaur near the painter's home. She will also be a FAMM artist-in-residence in 2026 and exhibit twenty-five sculptures of minotaurs in the streets of the village.
Several visits would have to be made in order to see the entire FAMM collection. The list of artists includes many emerging and established contemporaries: the Franco-Senegalese photographer Delphine Diallo and the former Russian model Masha Rudenko or the nonagenarian American Susan Weil, Ethel Schwabacher, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Lalan (Xie Jinglan), Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Alma Thomas, Howardena Pindell, Marlene Dumas, Carrie Mae Weems, Sarah Lucas, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Colomba, among many others. 
Visitors will be able to enjoy new exhibitions of rotating works throughout the year and be surrounded by a team of dedicated guides under the direction of Leisa Paoli, who worked to create this fantastic collection at the heart of Mougins with its founder for more than ten years. A real pleasure!

FAMM Museum, 32 Rue du Commandeur, 06250 Mougins Open every day from June 21 to September 30 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and from October 1 to June 20 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The FAMM museum opens its doors in Mougins, on the French Riviera

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