Nestled in the heart of the Hôtel d’Assézat, one of the most beautiful Renaissance monuments in Toulouse, the Bemberg Foundation museum will reopen its doors in early 2024, after three years of work.
The Foundation closed at the beginning of November 2020 for an overall renovation which aims to “replace 25 years of small, successive modifications with a unitary and more modern vision”, while respecting the heritage and the spirit desired by the founder, Georges Bemberg. The reopening, initially planned for 2022, was however delayed, in particular because the “project evolved through discussions”.
The work was entrusted to the architect Philippe Pumain who carried out the rehabilitation of the museum spaces in a building classified as a historic monument (in 1914), the renewal of the museography and the creation of new spaces dedicated to temporary exhibitions. The objective is to keep sets of paintings coherent chronologically, while trying to have a room per period and highlighting recent acquisitions. Reception conditions have also been revised with the addition of a ticket office and dedicated access for people with reduced mobility.
In 2016, the Foundation began a new stage in its development, with the appointment of Alfred Pacquement, former director of the National Museum of Modern Art – Center Pompidou, as head of the Board of Directors, then in 2022 with the arrival as director of the Foundation of Ana Debenedetti, former curator of paintings and drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
During the closure, the museum continued to bring its collections to life outside the walls by traveling around the world, from Lausanne to San Diego via Shanghai and Houston, bringing together nearly 600,000 visitors in total and generating financial resources. .
Established since 1995 in the Hôtel d’Assézat, the Bemberg Foundation aims to conserve and present the collection of Georges Bemberg (1915-2011), from a family of Argentine industrialists. It houses paintings, sculptures and art objects from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, signed by artists such as Clouet, Breughel and Tiepolo. There is also an exceptional collection of thirty paintings by Pierre Bonnard, sculptures by Rodin and pastels by Edgar Degas, witnesses of the 19th and 20th centuries.