Musée Matisse

The Musée Matisse is set in the Cimiez district of Nice, on a green hill north of the centre, in a seventeenth-century Genoese-style villa painted in warm ochre and red, with trompe-l'œil architecture on its facades. It stands in a park of olive trees, close to the Roman ruins of the ancient city of Cemenelum, and beside the former Franciscan monastery whose cemetery holds the grave of Henri Matisse. The museum opened in 1963, and a modern wing was added in the 1990s, giving the collection a more spacious setting.

Matisse's ties to Nice were long. He first came to the city in the winter of 1917 and from then on spent much of his life on the Riviera, drawn by the intense light and the colours of the sea and the market. From 1938 he lived in the Cimiez district, in a hotel apartment with a view over the city, until his death in 1954. The museum holds a large collection that came from the artist himself and from his heirs, nearly six hundred works that follow his career from the 1890s to the end of his life. This makes it a good place to see how he developed from his early, darker paintings to the vivid colour of Fauvism and finally to the cut-outs of his last years.

Among the highlights are paintings of the Nice period, with their interiors, open windows and models in patterned costumes, drawings, prints, sculpture and the tools of his craft. The late cut-out works, made by painting sheets of paper with gouache and cutting shapes with scissors, are particularly striking, and show how Matisse, working in a wheelchair or bed, turned a limitation into a new art form. Preparatory studies for the Chapel of the Rosary at Vence, the church he designed in the late 1940s, give an insight into the last great project of his career. Personal objects, such as vases, fabrics and furniture that he used in his compositions, are displayed too, so you can recognise them in the pictures.

Temporary exhibitions explore lesser-known aspects of his work or place it in dialogue with other artists. Opening times and ticket prices change with the season, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays, so check before you go. Allow an hour or two. The museum is reached by local buses from the centre, and the park is a good place to picnic.

It suits art lovers and anyone who enjoys light and colour. Nice has other fine museums, among them the Musée Marc Chagall and the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, and the Promenade des Anglais and the old town are within easy reach.