This was my first visit to Fondation Bemberg since 2016, following its recent major renovation during a three-year closure. The paintings have been rehung in chronological order making it a fascinating journey through the history of art from the Renaissance to the twentieth century.

The Bembergs were a prominent Lutheran family from Cologne. Around 1850 they left to settle in Argentina, where they founded an industrial empire. Georges Bemberg was born on 30 September 1915 in Buenos Aires and he spent his childhood between Argentina and Paris. After studying at Harvard University he became a student of the French pianist and composer Nadia Boulanger and considered a career as a composer, but eventually turned to writing. He published several novels and plays between 1943 and 2003.

Georges Bemberg

Encouraged by his uncles, he began to collect paintings and at only twenty he made his first acquisition in New York, a gouache by Pissarro. This was the beginning of a collection that would grow over the years. He was particularly interested in Venetian art and the Post-Impressionists, especially Pierre Bonnard. Over the years he amassed an enormous collection and In 1994 he lent over 1,100 works to the municipality of Toulouse for 99 years in order to make them accessible to the public.

Although the Fondation Bemberg holds frequent temporary exhibitions, it is Georges Bemberg’s permanent collection that fills the galleries and makes the Fondation such an important contribution to the study of art history.

A selection:

Vittore Carpaccio ‘Vierge à l’Enfant’ (c.1485 – 90)

Rogier van der Weyden ‘ Vierge à l’Enfant’ (15th century)

Jacopo Bassano ‘The Ascent to Calvary’ (c.1535 – 38)

Lucas Cranach the Elder ‘Hercule à la cour d’Omphale’ (1537)

Lorenzo Lotto ‘ Portrait d’homme au livre’ (1541)

Canaletto ‘Le Grand Canal entre les églises Santa Croce et San Geremia’ (18th century)

Honoré Daumier ‘L’amateur d’estampes’ (1860 – 65)

Mary Cassatt ‘Portrait de jeune femme au chapeau blanc’ (1879)

Claude Monet ‘ Bateaux sur la plage à Etretat’ (1883)

Paul Signac ‘Le clocher de Saint-Tropez’ (1896)

Georges Braque ‘Fenêtre sur l’Escaut’ (1906)

Henri Matisse ‘Bateau dans un port’ (c.1926)

Pablo Picasso ‘Nu assis et flûtiste’ (1967)