During the International Cultural Festival of Contemporary Art (IFCA), the participating artists had the opportunity to visit the The National Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers, on a guided tour and discover the impressive art collection, probably the largest art collection in Africa.
Musée National des beaux-arts d’Alger
The National Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers (Musée National des beaux-arts d’Alger) is an esteemed art institution in Algeria. It is a story of a cultural legacy intertwined with political upheaval and the quest for national identity, as seen through the prism of art.
The National Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers (French: Musée national des Beaux-Arts d’Alger) is one of the largest art museums in Africa. Opened to the public since 5 May 1930, it is located in the Hamma district, next to the Hamma test garden.
The museum, with its 8,000 works, includes paintings, drawings, engravings and old prints, sculptures, old furniture and decorative art, ceramics, glassware, as well as a numismatic collection. Among the works on display are paintings by Dutch and French masters such as Brugghen, Van Uyttenbroeck, Van Goyen, Monet, Matisse, Delacroix, Honoré Daumier, Renoir, Gauguin and Pissarro. But also emblematic Algerian artists, such as Baya, Yellès and Racim. The museum houses sculptures by Rodin, Bourdelle and Belmondo. On 14 May 1962 over 300 works of art were brought to the Louvre in Paris from the Museum.
The beginnings
The Algiers Museum of Fine Arts was created by politicians at the end of the 19th century, during the period of French Algeria. Originally it was in the dilapidated premises of the Société des beaux-arts founded by Hippolyte Lazerges in 1875 that the municipality of Algiers kept its works of art. It was not until 1897 that it acquired a real museum, devoted to the ancient and Muslim collections, even though it was housed in the buildings of a teacher training college. In 1908, a former army barracks located on the present site of the Safir Hotel was dedicated to art. It was inaugurated on 30 May 1908 and this creation had been requested for a long time because the Fine Arts room that served as a museum was very badly laid out and could not contain the works acquired by the municipality. This new municipal museum was directed until 1910 by Charles de Galland, but it was dilapidated and not very functional. The quality of the museum was not sufficient, so much so that travellers and the people of Algiers disdained and ignored the so-called “municipal” museum, which was located in an unfavourable, dilapidated, not very accessible place, even more poorly surrounded than poorly lit. Thus, the municipal museum of Algiers closed its doors after twenty years of operation between 1908 and 1928. A national museum of fine arts took over its collection, enriching it with new acquisitions.
The birth of the Musée des Beaux-Arts
With the opening of the “Villa Abd-el-Tif”, a real need in this field is felt and the project is entrusted to a little known architect, Paul Guion. The site is chosen, in Hamma, opposite the Jardin d’essai and not far from the Abd-el-Tif villa, on the hill of the wild boars. Paul Guion opted for a symmetrical and rectilinear monumentalism whose architectural elements drawn from Mediterranean art were to be echoed in the admirable furniture designed and drawn by Louis Fernez, a professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Algiers, some of whose pieces were commissioned from the designer Francis Jourdain. Begun in 1928, the work was quickly completed, thanks to credits that were generously granted. The architecture of the museum was much admired for its ideal location and its style of combining “past and present”. This architectural style symbolises the construction of the image of a young and modern country, but also one that is mindful of its traditions. The immense size of the new museum is worthy of consideration: thirty-five painting rooms, a sculpture gallery, a casting gallery, a library and a print room. The building is divided into three floors: on the ground floor is the moulding room, on the first floor the modern sculpture room and on the upper floor the painting galleries. The Algiers Fine Arts Museum, inaugurated on 5 May 1930, was not opened to the public until April 1931. It was the centenary of Algeria that promoted this project of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers. Celebrating its colonies, celebrating its victories in the Great War, the France of the Third Republic could not ignore the first centenary of its presence in Algeria. Prepared as early as 1923 under the aegis of the governor, General Steeg, a magnificent prelude to the Vincennes Exhibition was set up by a law of 1928 which created a High Council and a General Commission for the Centenary. The aim was to show what France had achieved in Algeria since its installation, the results obtained and the progress made. A budget originally set at 134 million was reduced to 82 million and in metropolitan France, all the goodwill was put into spreading the good word of French Algeria. Among these festive activities, the museum projects were promoted most considerably; alongside the great commemorative monuments, the Fine Arts Museum, the Bardo Museum, the Forestry Museum and the Franchet d’Espérey Museum in Algiers (historical museum of the Army and military festivals, installed in the military premises of the Casbah, not far from the first ramparts of Algiers) were also inaugurated. In contrast to the other recently inaugurated museums, the structures and status of the Musée des Beaux-Arts are being revised with new missions.
Text and more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Fine_Arts_of_Algiers
Photo by Lucian Muntean
















































































































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