News and events

Following the modernization and extension of the musée Fabre, the hôtel de Cabrières-Sabatier d'Espeyran is now open to show the new Department of Decorative Arts. This historical house allows the visitors to discover the life standing of bourgeois and aristocratic families of 18th and 19th centuries. In the completely restored reception rooms, the hôtel shows a remarkable collection of furniture along with goldsmithing pieces and ceramics in faithfully reconstituted spaces.

History of the Hôtel

The hôtel de Cabrières-Sabatier d'Espeyran was built in 1874-5 as ordered by count Charles Despous de Paul, member of the Montpellier high society, and was bequeathed by his descendants to the city of Montpellier in 1967. This building now houses the collections of decorative arts of the musée Fabre, mainly made with furniture and objects coming from the generous donationof Mrs. Sabatier d'Espeyran.

The rehabilitation works

The hôtel de Cabrières-Sabatier d'Espeyran closed its doors in 2003 following a flood on the collections. Important conservation and restoration works have been necessary to preserve this precious patrimony: until March 2005, inventory and preventive conservation of the collections ; in 2007, beginning of the restoration campaign; 2008-9: rehabilitation works.

A museum for the community

The museography conserves the intimate atmosphere of the place, leading the visitor from room to room.

- the ground floor contains a new space dedicated to ceramics and silverwork,
- the first floor shows the original apartments of Count Charles Despous de Paul, dating from second half of 19th century,
- the second floor hosts sets of furniture and objets d'art from 18th century.

Audioguides, roomsheets and a map are available for the public.

An ambitious multimedia programmation to accompany the visitor

A set of personal assistants are put at the disposal of the visitors to ease the access to information for all audiences.

The interpretation room, a place of educative information:

- computers giving free access to ludic applications, movies and the museum's databases
- documentation: catalogues, guides and books devoted to decorative arts

Exceptionally, the musée Fabre de Montpellier Agglomération shows an exhibition of works by Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano, in partnership with Shibuya International. A painter, he took part in the creation of cartoons (amongst which Maya the Honey Bee) and illustrated Japanese novels. He is known worldwide as the character designer of the Final Fantasy videogame series.

Ten engravings and eight original sketches (some for Final Fantasy) will be shown in the workshops of the musée Fabre de Montpellier Agglomération from April 6 until April 17, 2009. Free entrance.

Yoshitaka Amano will also give a lecture on April 7 at 6PM in the Médiathèque centrale Emile Zola - Montpellier Agglomération on the theme "Creativity at the service of videogames".

More information : http://www.objectif3d.com/amano/exposition.html

After an immense public and critical success at the Grand Palais in Paris followed by a showing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the great Gustave Courbet retrospective exhibition will be shown at the Musée Fabre of Montpellier Agglomération from 14 June to 28 September 2008.

This unique exhibition, anticipated for thirty years, unites an impressive collection of work, not only for the quantity (over one hundred works) but also for the quality. It pays tribute to one of the French artists whose work remains an inexhaustible reference.

Within the frame of the exhibition, two audioguide routes have been created: the first route contains commentaries on selected works (42 notices), and the second gathers extracts of Courbet's correspondence bound with exhibitied artworks.

It is also the occasion for Montpellier Agglomération to highlight its natural and artistic heritage with the Route Courbet. This unique project allows each visitor to discover in Courbet's footsteps the landscapes the artist painted from Villetelle to Sète. Specific indications are installed on the place of each stop.

More information on this exhibition

Rediscovering the Soul of the Museum

The radically redesigned Musée Fabre offers 9,200 m2 of visionary space showing what a museum can be, namely a place for discovery, exchanges, learning, research, and above all a place to share the emotions stirred by an exceptionally diverse collection of artwork. To this end, it was designed to be functional, logical and innovative, but above all comfortable and elegant, in order to create an intimate atmosphere conducive to contemplation.

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With the donation of twenty paintings covering a fifty-year period, from 1951 to 2005, and a dozen deposits, the Pierre and Colette Soulages collection at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier is a one-of-a-kind collection composed of exemplary works of 20th century French art, and painting in general. In accordance with the painter’s wishes, the works in the two exhibition rooms are not displayed in chronological order. “I don't think that a linear display is right for my work,” says Soulages. “Some of my paintings may follow on from the ones that came before, but not always. I work without a plan, I don’t look at the painting I’ve just finished to figure out what to do next.”
The hanging plan juxtaposes paintings that balance each other, in a work that progresses in loops. At Pierre Soulages' first retrospective in 1967, Andre Malraux made a comment that perfectly reflects this exhibit: “In the work of any artist, there is one painting that keeps coming back, in a different form, and this painting is very often the most significant thing in the painter’s approach.”

Very little is needed to appreciate the work of Pierre Soulages, who has always been hostile to any interpretation of the work of art. Even before The Open Work by Umberto Eco (1962), he wrote: “A painting is an organization, a set of relations between the shapes (lines, coloured surfaces) where the meanings that we give it come together and then dissolve.” A few years later, he added: “Only the public can decide on its meaning. I believe in the freedom of the spectator.” Therefore, the only guide we provide consists of a few biographical facts that will shed some light on the sources of the work and the artist's personality.