Paris. The big maneuvers have begun and change will start at the front door. In a few months, visitors to the Maillol Museum will enter through the paved courtyard of the Quatre-Saisons fountain, until now largely hidden from the public. A very visible modification which reflects a more profound transformation: Pierre and Alexandre Lorquin, grandsons of Dina Vierny, want to take control of both the programming and the economic model of the family institution. A subject less symbolic than economic: in this private museum on rue de Grenelle, temporary exhibitions are an essential driver of financial balance.
This return to control closes a turbulent history which ended up blurring the identity of the museum. After the death of Dina Vierny in 2009, her sons, Olivier and Bertrand Lorquin, entrusted the programming to Patrizia Nitti who directed it towards ancient art. The experience ended in 2015 with the bankruptcy of the Italian company. Culturespaces succeeds it and anchors the exhibitions in a modern style that flirts with the contemporary (Ben, Pop Art…). The operator withdrew in 2020, considering the business unprofitable. The Belgian producer Tempora contributes to altering the DNA of the Maillol Museum with Geluck’s Cat or the fashion designer Gianni Versace (produced by TF1). “Not great », concedes Pierre Lorquin.
Return to the Maillol spirit
The third generation wants to return to the fundamentals: Maillol, Dina Vierny and the artists around them. First demonstration on January 13, 2027 with “Dina Vierny, art and freedom”, then in June with a Séraphine de Senlis retrospective designed with the Center Pompidou-Metz. Very symbolically, the new graphic identity of the museum will include the name Fondation Dina Vierny. It is also necessary “think of the model as a whole”affirms Alexandre Lorquin, that is to say playing more on the synergy between the different activities: better promoting the permanent collection and the editions, developing privatizations by making the reception modular thanks to furniture on casters, transforming the old dressing rooms of the Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons cabaret in the basement into a musical restaurant entrusted to Laurent de Gourcuff, a specialist in the genre.
There remains the problem of surface area. Spaces are limited and the permanent collection sometimes has to be moved to make room for the exhibitions. The Lorquins assure that the gauge is sufficient for economic balance but do not refrain from playing their joker: a land reserve allowing the quadrilateral around the courtyard to be closed with a new wing. “It’s in the plans but not right away”they slip. A way of completing the real estate work of their grandmother who, from 1955, had gradually purchased the surrounding buildings, transformed into a whole after fifteen years of work.
The two brothers who grew up there are not partridges of the year. They have already taken over the Dina Vierny gallery in 2021 then opened, in 2025, a second space at 53, rue de Seine, in the former Jeanne Bucher Jaeger gallery. Their profiles complement each other: Pierre (33 years old) trained in economics; Alexandre (31 years old), in art history and management.
The Maillol Museum at 61 rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement. in Paris.
