This museum, 2km north in the leafy Cimiez quarter, houses a fascinating assortment of works by Matisse, including oil paintings, drawings, sculptures, tapestries and Matisse’s famous paper cut-outs. The permanent collection is displayed in a red-ochre 17th-century Genoese villa in an olive grove. Temporary exhibitions are in the futuristic basement building. Matisse is buried in the Monastère de Cimiez cemetery , across the park from the museum.
In the 1940s Matisse lived in the monumental Régina building at 71 bd de Cimiez. Originally Queen Victoria’s wintering palace, it had been converted into apartments and Matisse had two that he used as studio and home (where he died in 1954).
