Fine Arts Museum (Dunkirk)
The Museum of Fine Arts in Dunkirk ( Musée des Beaux-Arts ), founded in 1838 and whose previous building was destroyed in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, has once again enriched the cultural landscape of Dunkirk since October 15, 1973 . The museum is housed in a windowless cube clad in white marble on the Place du Général-de-Gaulle, where the city theater, the Théâtre Le Bateau Feu Dunkerque , and several buildings of the Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale were built.
One focus of the museum's collection and exhibition is on Flemish, Dutch, French and Italian painting of the 17th and especially the 18th centuries . Within Dunkirk, the Museum of Fine Arts in the city center shows old art, the LAAC between the city and the port shows modern art from 1940 to 1980 and in the port area the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais the latest collection of contemporary art.
Despite its name, the museum is just an art museum, for which it is primarily known; more than half of its collection consists of objects from natural history and ethnography . There is also a small collection of archaeological finds, such as an Egyptian mummy from Roman times.
In the field of natural history, it has more than 10,000 objects such as minerals and preparations from living beings, such as stuffed animals. The more than 2,500 ethnographic objects are to a large extent donations from the shipowners, merchants and captains of the port city, who were asked to bring interesting objects from all over the world when the museum was founded.
History of the museum
The museum was founded in 1838 and inaugurated in 1841 by the mayor and numerous dignitaries of the city. The then mayor of Dunkirk, François Gourdin, asked the captains, seamen, traders, shipowners and collectors of the city to make exotic objects that they brought with them from around the world available to the museum. Colonial officials and the military also sent acquisitions to Dunkirk. The museum also received entire art collections as gifts or bequests. Collections and objects related to local history such as woodcuts, coins and prints were also turned towards the museum.
The museum moved several times and its collections were relocated during both world wars. In May 1940, during the Battle of Dunkirk , which destroyed 80 percent of the city, the museum lost part of its holdings, especially sculptures and large paintings, to the bombing.
A milestone was the new building of the museum in 1973. The exhibition area of the museum building extends over three levels.
In the 1980s, a systematic acquisition strategy was implemented for the first time, which focused on the 17th and 18th centuries and from this period on the northern painting schools and on French pictures.
In the exhibition policy, in the museum only a fraction of the holdings can be shown, one turned away from the earlier encyclopedic claim and tried to give the visitors a feeling of enjoyment and discovery by changing presentations. For example, the presentation Retours de mer from September 21, 2013 to January 31, 2015 combines classic works on seafaring owned by the museum with modern art on the subject and also with particularly artistic pieces from the ethnographic collection related to the sea, for example from Oceania .
Web links
- Dunkerque, Musée des Beaux-Arts (Museum of Fine Arts) (English)
- Photos of the museum (French)
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 10 " N , 2 ° 22 ′ 53" E