Tag: outsider art

Postcard from Marseille, France: Cantini’s insider to outsider art

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A close-up view of a postmarked envelope featuring various stamps, including a red priority mail stamp and green stamps depicting abstract figures, along with handwritten details and doodles.
Above: Postal art incorporated in a collage by Louis Pons.

Above: “Les Fleurs et le Matin,” Alfred Lombard (1884-1973), 1913

I kill time with the strokes of the pen…. It will take a long time.”

Louis Pons (1927-2021)

A palace built at the tail end of the 17th century by wealthy trade merchants was acquired a century later by the artistic son of a stonemason. With a ready supply of fine marble at hand, Jules Cantini’s (1826-1916) attraction to sculpture was only natural. He designed altars for some of Marseille’s most important churches.

A statue atop a monument stands in a park with people seated at tables below it, surrounded by trees and a blue sky.
1894 “Monument des Mobiles” funded by Jules Cantini.

Retaining the profitable marble business of his father, Jules began to assemble a major art collection. For his native city, Cantini underwrote the construction of a landmark fountain and memorial designed by architect Gaudensi Allar (1841-1904) and dedicated to the citizens who perished during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.

Cantini bequeathed his home to the Marseilles for use as a museum dedicated to decorative arts. The city opened the museum in 1936, eventually spotlighting emerging trends in French art from 1900-1980. A random sampling of works are found below.

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