첫 소식으로 우울하지만 파리의 사립미술관인 마이욜 미술관이 적자와 운영부실로 문을 닫는다는 소식입니다. 우리의 부실한 사립미술관과 박물관들도 그 장래를고민해 보아야 할 듯 합니다. 사실 지자체가 인수하거나 아니면 콘소시움을 만들어 몇개의 사립미술관 박물관들이 통폐합을 해서 존립기반을 강화하는 것입니다. 또 법인화를 서둘러 스스로 운영의 투명성을 확보하면서 정부와 지자체 그리고 민간의 모금과 후원을 통해 항국적인 존립기반을 만드는 것이 중요할 듯 합니다. 마이욜같은 세계적인 지명도를 지닌 작가의 미술관이 문을 닫는데 말입니다. 

Musée Maillol shuts its doors as management company files for bankruptcy

The Paris museum’s abrupt closure this weekend comes after falling attendance and rising debtsBy Vincent Noce. Web only

Published online: 18 February 2015

The Musée Maillol in Paris has closed

It is a sad 20th birthday for the Musée Maillol in Paris, which shut its doors indefinitely this weekend. The museum has posted a message on its website that says the closure is due to planned renovation work, but there is more to the story. On 5 February, the company that manages the museum, Tecniarte, filed for bankruptcy.

According to court filings, with only €11,000 in cash in its coffers, Tecniarte could not possibly cover its €3.3m debt, which is “due immediately”. The list of creditors has not been made public and the foundation that runs the museum has declined to comment since the bankruptcy filing. 

Named after the sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), the museum was opened in 1995 by Dina Vierny, who was the artist’s model and muse before she became an art dealer. A diminutive figure, full of energy, she was active in the American journalist Varian Fry’s network to help Jewish artists and scholars escape Vichy France through the Pyrenees during the Second World War. In her hôtel particulier on Paris’ fashionable left bank, she displayed her personal collection of Maillol’s work and organised Modern art shows.

After her death six years ago, aged 90, her son Olivier Lorquin hired an Italian director, Patrizia Nitti, to manage the museum through her company Tecniarte. With the Musée Maillol as its only client, it made €3.6m in revenue last year. The company’s books were still balanced in 2012, when earnings were up to €5m, but by 2013, its losses amounted to €1.3m. This month, “the loss of clientele and a huge deficit” led a judge to approve Tecniarte’s liquidation. 

Although she is not an art historian, Nitti ran a theatre festival at Pompeii in the 1980s and she maintained strong connections in Italy, which allowed her to borrow significant works by artists such as Botticelli and Veronese for special exhibitions. Her earliest shows at the Musée Maillol were well received, but in 2012, two exhibitions on the artists Artemisia Gentileschi and Canaletto were roundly criticised by specialists due to doubts over some of the works’ authenticity. Last year, Nitti bounced back with a brilliant display of treasures from the chapel of San Gennaro at Naples Cathdral, which had never before been shown outside Italy. But museum attendance by then was already on the decline. 

“There is no suspicion of any mismanagement expressed against Ms Nitti”, her lawyer, Stéphane Sebag, told The Art Newspaper. “After five years of brilliant exhibitions, she decided on her own to file for bankruptcy. General attendance at the museum has been falling. Some shows did not meet the expected results. And the final blow came after the terrorist attacks in January.”

Sebag added that the agent appointed by the court to oversee the bankruptcy is discussing an agreement with the Maillol’s foundation to insure, secure and return the works loaned by Italian museums for its recent exhibition on the Borgias, which ended on 15 February. The next show, “The Kiss in Western Art”, scheduled to open in March and organised by Serge Lemoine, the former director of the Musée d’Orsay, has been cancelled. The Art Newspaper understands that Nitti is considering returning to Rome. Her attorney declined to comment on this but says: “it is only the end of a beautiful adventure, and then each partner will go its way.She still has great things to accomplish.”