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A Summer Art Road Trip Through the South of France

From Matisse in dialogue with Yves Saint Laurent in Nice to LUMA Arles and the region’s expanding network of foundations, these are the exhibitions and art destinations worth building your Riviera itinerary around.

The South of France has long been a favorite retreat of artists for its Mediterranean light, atmosphere and landscapes that inspired generations of modernist pioneers to experiment with color and perception. Dealers and collectors soon followed, turning the region into one of the summer season's most beloved escapes. Since the opening of Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1964—France's first independent art foundation—the South of France has become home to a thriving art ecosystem that gained renewed momentum during the COVID-19 crisis and has continued to expand ever since.

It was in the midst of the pandemic that Plein Sud first set out to map the region's art scene and build a cooperative network. From 20 institutions in 2020, it has grown to include more than 80 visual arts venues in 2026, stretching from Céret near the Spanish border to Menton near Italy and encompassing museums, public art centers, private foundations, artist residencies, sculpture parks, historic sites and collection-based institutions. To help you plan the rest of your summer season, we've assembled a list of the region's must-visit art destinations and exhibitions, organized as a road trip that will take you from Nice southward.

Must-see exhibitions in the French Riviera

"Henri Matisse – Yves Saint Laurent"

"Ellsworth Kelly - At the Edge of Water"

"Abstract Constructions" and Jean Prouvé

"The Voices of Their Works"

Dan Flavin at the Venet Foundation

Peyrassol Wine and Art Estate

Rashid Johnson and Sheree Hovsepian at Château La Coste

Saodat Ismailova, Camille Henrot, Stan Douglas, Patti Smith and more at LUMA

Victor Vasarely, "Project for a Revolution"

The Rencontres d'Arles

Park Chan-wook and Pooya Abbasian at the Lee Ufan Museum

"Images, Body, Power," "Le murmure des Libres" and Kim Gordon

"Henri Matisse – Yves Saint Laurent"

Through September 28, 2026

Some of Matisse's most vibrant works were conceived during his years in Nice, beginning in 1917. While staying at the Hôtel Beau Rivage on the Promenade des Anglais, where his narrow room opened onto the sea through a large window, he became captivated by the Mediterranean's bright, colorful reflections, finding its vivid clarity especially compelling in winter. The Musée Matisse in Nice houses works donated to the city by the artist and his heirs, many of them from this defining period. This summer, the museum is showing "Beauty, Fashion and Happiness," an elegant dialogue between the French painter and fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent that reveals their shared vocabulary of body, material, color, light and pattern, as well as their mutual understanding of drawing as a source of experimentation. Organized in collaboration with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, the exhibition dissolves the boundaries between art and fashion and between the fine and applied arts. It brings together 160 works, including paintings, haute couture garments, traditional folk costumes, drawings, textiles, accessories and archival documents, to illuminate the visual and emotional bonds the couturier developed with Henri Matisse's work.

"Ellsworth Kelly - At the Edge of Water"

Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Through November 15, 2026

The Maeght Foundation was not only the first foundation of its kind in the region but also the first in France to be entirely devoted to modern and contemporary art, housing today one of Europe's major collections of twentieth-century painting, sculpture, drawing and graphic art. Founded in 1964 by the art dealers, publishers and lithographers Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, it opened in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in a building designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert. Artists including Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder and Fernand Léger also contributed to its development, helping to shape the immersive, destination-based model that many later foundations across southern France would adopt. Highlights include the Giacometti Court, Miró's sculptures and labyrinth, Braque's mosaic pool and site-specific works throughout the grounds. This summer, the foundation is placing a special spotlight on Ellsworth Kelly, bringing together more than 100 works to examine a central yet long-overlooked theme in his practice: the inspiration he drew from water in developing his distinctive abstract language. Throughout his life, he was drawn to aquatic environments, from Belle-Île and the Côte d'Azur to New York and the Caribbean, where sustained observation of water gave rise to drawings, collages, paintings and sculptures. Rather than depicting landscapes, Kelly translated the perception of water itself: its shifting color, light and surface. The exhibition also commemorates Kelly's early and enduring friendship with the Maeght family, with whom he regularly spent summers beginning in 1948, and forms part of an American season of concerts and events. (TIP: Have lunch, dinner or at least a verre at La Colombe d'Or, the historical Riviera's unofficial artists' club. Opened by Paul Roux in the 1920s, the bar-café became a gathering place for artists drawn to the Côte d'Azur. Roux became friends with many of them, often accepting artworks in exchange for meals or accommodation, which shaped the remarkable collection that still hangs in the dining rooms, corridors and gardens. Reservations are recommended, particularly in high season.)

"Abstract Constructions" and Jean Prouvé

Fondation CAB Saint-Paul-de-Vence 

Through October 31, 2026

Launched in 2021 amid the French Riviera's renewed cultural boom, this is the second location of Fondation CAB, established in Brussels in 2012 by collector Hubert Bonnet and dedicated to championing Minimal and Conceptual art. Housed in a 1950s modernist building renovated by architect and designer Charles Zana, the foundation's light, restrained interiors echo the elegance of the art and design on view. This summer, it has staged a revealing first-time dialogue between the painterly compositions of Greek artist Nassos Daphnis and the sculptures, installations and architectural models produced by Rita McBride over the past three decades. Fondation CAB is also turning its attention to Jean Prouvé and his ambition to bring the refined essentials of modern living together with constructive precision and structural lyricism. Archival materials, prefabricated elements and iconic furniture reveal........

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