The Musée international d'Art naïf Anatole Jakovsky (Eng.: Anatole Jakovsky International Museum of Naive Art) is a museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 located in Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, which displays 18-to-21st century works specialized in naive art

Naïve art

Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...

. The museum was inaugurated on 5 March 1982.

History and description

The museum was housed in the Château Saint Hélène which was the former residence of perfumer François Coty, and is located in a large park. In 1930, his ex-wife Yvonne decide to order changes in the building by Nice architect H. Malgaud who removed the sets designed by Aaron Messiah. Her daughter Christiane Coty sold the castle to the city of Nice on 6 April 1973, and the building was eventually transformed into a museum, which opened in 1982.

The works are composed of paintings, sculptures, drawings, posters by painters such as Henri Rousseau

Henri Rousseau

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...

, Séraphine Louis

Séraphine Louis

Séraphine Louis, known as "Séraphine de Senlis" , was a French painter in the naïve style. Self-taught, she was inspired by her religious faith and by stained-glass church windows and other religious art...

, Grandma Moses

Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses , better known as "Grandma Moses", was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Although her family and friends called her either "Mother Moses" or "Grandma Moses,"...

, O'Brady, Rimbert, Ivan and Josip Généralic, Bauchant, Vivin, Lackovic, Haddelsey, Ligabue, Vivancos, among others...

The collection come from donations of Renée and Anatole Jakovsky

Anatole Jakovsky

Anatole Jakovsky was a French art critic who wrote substantially, collected widely, and established a museum in Nice for Naïve art, Musée international d'Art naïf Anatole Jakovsky....

 (to whom the museum owes its current name), and the Centre Georges Pompidou

Centre Georges Pompidou

Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...

. The giant statues in the garden were created by Frédéric Lanovsky. The museum has about 20,000 visitors per year, and 600 works from 27 countries.