National Museum of Modern Art Profile and Visitor Information

Inaugurated in 1977 as part of the the bold postmodern venture that marked the opening of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the National Museum of Modern Art (MNAM) houses one of the world's most prestigious collections of 20th-century art.

Boasting nearly 50,000 works of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other media, the permanent collection at the National Museum of Modern Art is freshly curated every year to reflect new acquisitions and allow greater circulation. Two floors cover major 20th-century movements, from Cubism to Surrealism and Pop Art. The temporary collections are nearly always newsworthy.

Location: Centre Georges Pompidou, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris 75004

The museum is located on the 4th and 5th floors of the Centre Pompidou. Ticketing and cloakrooms are on the ground floor.

Telephone: 33 (0)1 44 78 12 33

Metro: Rambuteau or Hotel de Ville (Line 11); Les Halles (Line 4))
RER: Chatelet-Les-Halles (Line A)
Bus: Lines 38, 21, 29, 47, 58, 69, 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, 81, 85, 96
Parking: Rue Beaubourg Underpass
Phone: 33 (0)144 78 12 33
Visit the website (in English]

Nearby Areas and Attractions:

• The Marais Neighborhood
• Hôtel de Ville (City Hall)
• Rue Montorgueil Neighborhood
• Picasso Museum

Opening Hours

The museum is open every day except Tuesdays and May 1st, 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Ticket counters close at 8:00 p.m., and galleries close at 8:50 p.m.

For select exhibits, galleries are open until 11:00 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays (ticket counters close at 10:00 p.m.). See agenda page for more info.

General Admission

Purchase of a museum ticket allows unlimited day access to the permanent collections, all current exhibits, the "espace 315", the children's galleries, and the panoramic view of Paris on the 6th floor.

• Full price: 10 Euros
• Reduced admission: 8 Euros
• Children under 18: free
• Museum is free every first Sunday of the month.
• Purchase tickets online

One year passes: If you are planning to visit Paris several times in a year and would like unlimited access to exhibits, cinema, performances, and more, consider purchasing the "Laissez-passer" card. The card also provides priority entry.

For detailed information and visual representations of the Museum of Modern Art's collections, check out the Museum Tour page. A searchable database allows you to browse the museum's collections by artist, period, and other criteria, and there's also a sizeable and free online video collection giving you a glimpse into collections and past temporary exhibits and events.

For detailed maps of the museum's layout, click here.

For virtual tours of the museum and the Centre Pompidou, click here.

• General tours: Sat.-Sun., 4 p.m. (except 1st Sunday of the month; in French); English tours Saturday 3 p.m.
  Prices:
  
  
  • Regular admission: 4.50 Euros exhibit ticket at reduced price (8 Euros).
  • Reduced admission: 3.50 Euros exhibit ticket at reduced price (8 Euros).
  
  
• In-depth visits focus on specific aspects of the collections. Admission prices are the same as for general tours. For information on current and upcoming tours, consult this page.

Tours of temporary exhibits are also available. For information on current and upcoming tours, click here.

The Museum of Modern Art is generally well-accessible to disabled visitors. For access points and information on visiting the museum and the Centre Pompidou, see the access page. For more in-depth information on services available to disabled visitors, visit the special website (in French only). If you are unable to read French and need specific information, call the general helpline at ( 33) (0)1 44 78 12 33.

Three Flammarion arts bookstores on the ground level, 4th, and 6th floors of the Centre Pompidou feature an excellent selection of books, posters, and gifts, including material related to current exhibits and events.

The 4th and 6th floor bookstores focus on temporary exhibits, while the ground floor offers more general books and gifts related to contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.

Temporary exhibits at the MNAM reflect the museum's eclectic and bold choices as well as their position as one of the world's most important influences in contemporary art. Temporary exhibits at the Centre Pompidou are often interdisciplinary, transcending usual boundaries between art forms. Avant-garde and experimental movements have traditionally been privileged. In more recent years, however, the museum has begun to focus on single, often highly popular artists such as Yves Klein. This trend is not to everyone's taste, since the museum originally established itself as a dissenter.

• Info on current exhibits

The permanent collection currently occupies the 4th and 5th floors of the Centre Pompidou. Additionally, plans are underway to extend the collection to unoccupied galleries at the Palais de Tokyo in west Paris.

Collection Layout

The 5th floor covers modern works from 1905 to 1960. Roughly 900 paintings, sculptures, photos, design and architecture pieces are displayed in the modern galleries. Around 40 galleries focus on individual artists and movements.

5th-floor Highlights:

• Fauvism: Works by Matisse, Dufy, or Derain exemplify the fauvists' use of bold colors and simplified forms.
  
  
• Cubism: Works by Braque and Picasso show how the cubists brought form to radical new dimensions, flouting traditional concepts of anatomy and perspective.
  
  
• The Dada Movement: Invented in the midst of WWI, the Dada movement infused art with a sense of arbitrariness and absurdity that reflected the horror of the war. Dadaist artists like Duchamp juxtapose objects one wouldn't usually associate, and invent the notion of "found objects": any mundane object can be a work of art.
  
  
• Expressionism: Artists like Modigliani, Kandinsky, and Klee reinvent the 19th century movement known as expressionism, taking color and form to a new level of abstraction.
  
  
• Bauhaus and functionalism: A new focus on functionality and simplicity of design in sculpture, architecture, photography, and other mediums is reflected in the works of Bauhaus and functionalist artists like the Delaunay couple and Paul Klee. These artists continued to push the envelope by reaching for ever-more "pure" forms of abstractionism.
  
  
• Surrealism: Inspired by the Dada movement, surrealist artists like Dali, Bréton, Miro, and Magritte placed the dream world and the unconscious mind as the new center of artistic expression. Works like Magritte's "Sitting Figure" (which depicts a standing figure) show the movement's embracing of the absurd and incongruent. Abstract expressionist works by American artists Pollock and or Newman follow in a natural succession.
  
  
• The final galleries display major sculptures by Brancusi and Matisse.

The 4th floor covers contemporary works from 1960 to the present.

• Pop Art: Works by Andy Warhol are the major highlight of the Pop Art movement, which appropriated popular cultural icons and commercial objects as art.
  
  
• Other important movements and artists include the new realism of Klein or Saint-Phalle, experimentation in architecture and design since 1960, or cinema and video installations.