The Fondation Maeght, the first private art institution in France, turns 60 this summer, and is marking the occasion with an additional 500 sq m of exhibition space. Its founders, Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, were art dealers and publishers, as well as close friends of some of the great 20th-century artists. When their youngest son, Bernard, died of leukaemia, in 1953, this group of friends urged them to assuage their pain by creating a showcase for modern art. Inspired by American art foundations such as Barnes and Phillips, the couple hired Josep Lluís Sert, a Catalan architect who had designed Joan Miró’s studio, to build on a pine-covered hilltop in the Provençal village of Saint-Paul de Vence.
