The Electricity Fairy
Six hundred square metres of colour wrapping an entire curved hall — the world's largest painting, before which Dufy's 1937 hymn to progress explains itself.
Maciej Zgadzaj — CC BY 2.0 · Jean-Pierre Dalbéra — CC BY 2.0 · dalbera — CC BY 2.0 · dalbera — CC BY 2.0
The Pompidou is the vaster national collection (closed for full renovation until late this decade); MAM is the city's elegant free one — with the Pompidou dark, MAM is unquestionably Paris's first address for modernism.
Trocadéro views first, the free MAM circuit, Palais de Tokyo lunch, then Galliera or a riverbank descent toward the Tower — an art half-day of perfect rhythm and thinner crowds.
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Another secret of the free City of Paris museums: the Musée d'Art Moderne (MAM) in the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo, its permanent collection holding Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Delaunay and Dufy — no ticket, no queue, and an Eiffel Tower view from its river terrace. Its twin jewels are two incomparable rooms: Raoul Dufy's "Electricity Fairy" — the largest painting in the world, six hundred square metres telling electricity's history from Aristotle to the light bulb in an overwhelming festival of colour — and the "Dance" room with Matisse's two facing murals. Around them runs a full course in Parisian 20th-century modernism, its Cubists, Fauves and abstractionists. Its neighbour in the west wing is the Palais de Tokyo, Europe's largest contemporary-art centre with experimental shows and fashionable restaurants — the two wings together, with Galliera opposite, make the lightest, least-crowded art day in Paris.
Six hundred square metres of colour wrapping an entire curved hall — the world's largest painting, before which Dufy's 1937 hymn to progress explains itself.
Two versions of "The Dance" facing each other in one hall — the rare chance to watch a single idea evolve in the master's hands.
MAM free, Palais de Tokyo for experiment, Galliera for fashion — three art worlds within two hundred metres, directly opposite the Eiffel Tower.
Avenue du Président Wilson, across from the Eiffel Tower, 75116 Paris