CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) and the Royal Academy of Arts London present Painting the French Riviera, an exhibition that will explore the rise and development of modern art on the Mediterranean coast of France from the 1870s through the 1960s. The exhibition brings together more than 120 paintings, sculptures and drawings, as well as film, books, posters, and other mediums, demonstrating the lasting influence and inspiration found in the French Riviera.

On view at the Royal Academy of Arts from October 2, 2026, through January 31, 2026, Painting the French Riviera will travel to CMA and welcome visitors March 14, 2027, through July 11, 2027.

“Painting the French Riviera spans 90 years of artwork inspired by the brilliant light, azure skies and luminous sea abundant in the French Riviera’s landscapes, especially its Mediterranean beaches,” said Heather Lemonedes Brown, CMA’s Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of Modern European Art.

“Artists such as Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso traveled to the French Riviera seeking refuge from the cold, crowded conditions of industrialized cities, looking to rejuvenate themselves, recoup from illness, socialize, and paint,” she continued. “Entranced by the quality of the light and the intense blue of the Mediterranean Sea and sky, visits to the French Riviera became a form of renewal, inspiring artists to develop new techniques and approaches to portray their surroundings. Many returned year after year or acquired homes there. As Matisse famously explained, he traveled to Nice to recover from bronchitis. Discouraged by rain, he was on the point of leaving when the sky cleared. “I decided not to leave Nice and have stayed there practically the rest of my life”.





The exhibition traces how the South of France became a powerful vehicle for modern artistic experiments thanks to expanded rail lines that allowed for easier travel from Paris and northern Europe to Marseille, the French Riviera and the small coastal villages along the Mediterranean. Paul Cezanne, a native of Aix-en-Provence, was among the first to forge modernist experiments in the region. His work inspired fellow Impressionists Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Berthe Morisot to visit and paint the region. The work of all three artists is represented in the exhibition.

Monet, too, was drawn to the area of which he said, “It is so beautiful here, so bright, so luminous. One swims in blue air.” It was in the French Riviera that Monet first began experimenting with painting in series producing such masterpieces as Morning at Antibes (1888).

Visitors to the Painting the French Riviera will also encounter works by Neo-Impressionists Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross and Théo van Rysselberghe, whose pointillist technique was ideally suited to capturing the sparkling southern light. “Those familiar with the CMA’s collection will have the exciting opportunity to view a popular recent acquisition, Cross’s Pink Cloud, presented alongside other Pointillist paintings by Cross and his colleagues that offer new perspectives and greater context,” said Brown.

Inspired by the Neo-Impressionists, Matisse visited the south of France, painting in St. Tropez and later in the fishing town of Collioure with André Derain, leading to the creation of paintings with a bold use of color that prompted the critics to call them Fauves (Wild Beasts). In this section of the exhibition, Matisse, Derain and Georges Braque’s paintings will be juxtaposed with sculptures and paintings of Aristide Maillol, an artist from Banyuls-sur-Mer on the southwest coast of France near the Spanish border, whose works frequently allude to his Mediterranean origins.

Bonnard’s interpretation of the French Riviera, with golden-lit interior spaces and spectacular Mediterranean views, coincided with the glamour of the 1920s, when Nice and the French Riviera became the center of leisure, travel and modern life. The exhibition also includes the work of international artists such as Léopold Survage, Alexander Archipenko, Chaïm Soutine, William H. Johnson and Max Beckmann, who made important modernist advances while spending time on the French Riviera.

Digital reproductions of vintage travel posters, maps, first edition copies of travel guides, memoirs, and novels taking place on the French Riviera and clips from films featuring the area during Hollywood’s Golden Age (1920s-1960s) are also on display.





Picasso spent many summers along the Mediterranean coast, eventually settling there, inspired by its light and colors. Through paintings and works on paper created across five decades, the exhibition explores Picasso’s ever-shifting artistic style, as it was influenced by the French Riviera.

Nicolas da Staël, who explored natural landscapes through experiments with color and form, including the CMA’s Landscape at Le Lavandou (1952), and works by Yves Klein, a native of Nice known for his blue sea sponge sculptures and paintings that reference the physical environment of the Riviera, conclude the exhibition.

Painting the French Riviera is co-curated by Ann Dumas, Curator, the Royal Academy of Arts and Heather Lemonedes Brown, Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of Modern European Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, with Colm Guo-Lin Peare, Assistant Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Kenneth Silver, Marilyn McCully, Jean-Louis Andral, Richard Thomson, Belinda Thomson, Aymeric Jeudy, William Robinson, Heather Lemonedes Brown and Ann Dumas.