Tracing History: An Art Lover's Guide to Saint Paul de Vence, Provence

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It's a big year for Matisse with shows in Barcelona, Chicago and Paris. The latter is a landmark exhibition, which spotlights the industrious last years of the artist's life when he moved to the small Provençal village of Saint Paul de Vence. Elizabeth Bennett shares a postcard from this pocket of Provence, where the art scene is still thriving.

BY ELIZABETH BENNETT | CABANA TRAVEL | 30 JULY 2026

Exterior, Fondation CAB, Saint Paul de Vence © Fondation CAB.

I have yet to arrive in Saint Paul de Vence when my taxi driver, as we near the small French village, starts regaling a tale of his grandfather meeting Pablo Picasso and the unsigned drawings they have in an attic. In this part of southern France, I am sure he isn’t the only one with such an anecdote in his family history.

The fortified medieval village of Saint Paul de Vence in the hills between Nice and Antibes has long attracted artists. Drawn by its luminous light, here, even the cobbled streets are studded with sun motifs and the honey-hued stone glows golden as the sun sets.

In the 1920s, influential artists and sculptors, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Georges Braque, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse and countless others, spent time in the village. Many of them stayed at the mythical hotel, La Colombe d'Or, where they were offered food and lodgings in exchange for an artwork. Today you can still lie by the pool next to an Alexander Calder mobile or enjoy dinner sitting underneath a Miró painting.

Fondation Maeght, le Labyrinthe Miró 1964-1973. Photo: Olivier Amsellem - Archives Fondation Maeght © Successió Miró / ADAGP, Paris, 2025

Moreover, in the 1950s, Paris art dealers Aimé and Marguerite Maeght opened Fondation Maeght on a hilltop behind the walled village. Working with artists to create site-specific installations, among the spectacular cluster of white pavilions, you find Giacometti's Courtyard with his bronze figures placed exactly where he intended them and Joan Miró's Labyrinth, an outdoor sculpture garden filled with his three-dimensional work.

Beyond its backstory, the region is just as much a creative hub today. This is something I discover when I check in to Toile Blanche, a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Toile Blanche is a hotel and an artwork itself masterminded by the Leroy brothers – the Belgian born trio who have worked collaboratively for the past 25 years pioneering boundary pushing work, often at the intersection of technology.

Starting out as a small B&B, the project has now grown to 22 suites across seven buildings, with three pools and two restaurants throughout the expansive gardens. Sculptures pop up all over as I explore. There’s Gregory Orekhov’s Magic Bed, a shimmering sunbed which hangs high on a Provençal stone wall while Arik Levy’s Rock Formation, a stack of mirrored geometric shapes ascends out a lavender field.

Fondation CAB, Abstract Constructions © Fondation CAB.

Inside, there is a gallery space, Toile Blanche Contemporary, that shows rotating exhibitions with the photographs of Tom Barman currently on display. In winter, they host creative residencies, inviting artists like sculptor Holly Hendry who experimented with cyanotypes on her recent visit. The brothers continue to work on their latest art, the hotel itself, creating spin-off projects such as photography series documenting the inner workings of hospitality – restaurant receipts and dirty laundry included. Continuing the legacy of this region, they have also collaborated on a contemporary art map of the area, spotlighting where to visit.

The first of this is Fondation CAB, founded by Hubert Bonnet and located equidistant between Fondation Maeght and La Colombe d'Or, on the edge of the village. The Brussels-based non-profit foundation who specialise in minimal and conceptual art and design opened up in Saint Paul de Vence in 2021 and run two exhibitions in parallel for the summer season and invite artists for residences throughout the winter.

Championing lesser-known historical figures in modern art and those working today, the current exhibition Abstract Constructions pairs the work of Greek-American artists Nassos Daphnis and American artist Rita McBride. The former worked from the sixties to the nineties and the latter is active today but the two share a similar sensibility when it comes to the use of lines with Daphnis’ large graphic canvases a perfect companion to McBride’s architecture inspired textile wall hangings and sculptural mobiles.

Heading downstairs, the second exhibition is dedicated to the French designer Jean Prouvé and brings together rare pieces of his work and archive footage of the visionary impact he had on architecture and interior design. Meanwhile, outside one of his demountable houses designed in 1944, has been adapted into a bedroom with furniture signed by Prouvé and available to guests for a unique overnight stay.

This philosophy of living with and enjoying iconic art and design continues in the four other guest rooms at the foundation. In room two where I am staying, there’s a Jeanneret desk and an Alvar Aalto ceiling light placed above the bed.

Walking through the walled village, nearly every address on the main street is an art gallery of sorts. However, following the curated art map, I am delighted to discover the mesmerising work of Reine Paradis at the Podgorny Gallery, a French LA-based artist whose technicolor paintings, based on self-portrait photography, border on the surreal.

Jean Prouve Cabin, Saint Paul de Vence.

Before I leave, I make the journey up the valley to the sister town of Vence, where Matisse spent his final days and gave back to the region with a chapel he dedicated the last four years of his life to. A culmination of his work, Matisse designed almost every element of the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence from the stained glass windows and ceramic wall murals right down to the candlesticks and outfits worn by the priests.

It's monastic yet decorative, a space that just calls you. As the early evening sunshine pours in through the stained glass, I truly understand the magic that keeps artists coming back to this uniquely atmospheric part of Provence.