The Pinault Collection

In parallel with his entrepreneurial successes over the last 50 years, François Pinault has amassed one of the world's largest collections of contemporary art. This unique collection contains more than 10,000 pieces by around 400 artists across all generations and genres, from the most high-profile to the most recently emerging.

All have now come together as the Pinault Collection, whose activities focus on different areas such as galleries in Venice and Paris, a programme of off-site exhibitions, and the development of initiatives to promote artistic creation and modern & contemporary art history research.

THE GALLERIES

In 2006, the Pinault Collection opened its first gallery in Palazzo Grassi in Venice. The site had been renovated and remodelled by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando.

Three years later, Punta della Dogana, restored and transformed also by Tadao Ando, housed its first exhibition of a selection of Pinault Collection works of art.

In 2013, Tadao Ando rebuilt the Teatrino, an adjacent space to Palazzo Grassi which serves as a 225-seats auditorium that hosts a rich and varied cultural program (screenings, concerts, lectures).

In 2016, the Pinault Collection signed a 50-year lease to occupy the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The restoration of the site has been once again entrusted to Tadao Ando, in collaboration with Lucie Niney and Thibault Marca of NeM Architects, and Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Architect-in-Chief of the French Historic Monuments Commission.

In 2021, the Bourse de Commerce was inaugurated.

The galleries

  • Bourse de commerce

    Paris

  • palazzo grassi

    Venise

  • punta della dogana

    Venise

THE OFF-SITE EXHIBITIONS

Works from the Collection are regularly exhibited in France and around the world.

Pinault Collection has held numerous exhibitions in Moscow, Lille, Essen, Stockholm, Monaco, Rennes, Beirut, Seoul, Dinard, Rouen, Dunkirk, Marseille and Tourcoing.

Pinault Collection has also developed a strong cooperation with major French and foreign museums through loans of works, joint acquisitions (Centre Pompidou, LACMA, the Philadelphia Museum ....) and common exhibitions.

THE ARTISTS' RESIDENCE IN LENS

The Pinault Collection has joined forces with the Hauts-de-France region and the City of Lens to create an artists' residence in this former mining town.

A place to live, a place to work, with a monthly grant, the artists' residency offers, during a whole year - from September to June - a framework for artistic practice in a place equipped for creation.

Seven artists have worked here since the residency was first offered in 2016:
- Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson (2016) ;
- Edith Dekyndt (2017) ;
- Lucas Arruda (2018) ;
- Hicham Berrada (2019) ;
- Bertille Bak (2019-2020) ;
- Enrique Ramirez (2020-2021) ;
- Melik Ohanian (2021-2022) ;
- Benoît Piéron (2022-2023).

THE PIERRE DAIX PRIZE

As a tribute to his friend the historian Pierre Daix, who died in 2014, François Pinault created the Pierre Daix Prize, which is awarded each year to a modern or contemporary art history publication.

Since 2015, the award has been presented to:

- Yve-Alain Bois for the first volume of the catalogue raisonné of Ellsworth Kelly's work, published by Cahiers d'Art, and Marie-Anne Lescourret for Aby Warburg ou la tentation du regard, published by Editions Hazan.
- Maurice Fréchuret for Effacer. Paradoxe d’un geste artistique, published by Presses du Réel
- Elisabeth Leibovici for Ce que le sida m'a fait - Art et activisme à la fin du XXe siècle, published jointly by JRP | Ringier and Maison rouge - Fondation Antoine de Galbert.
- Pierre Wat for Pérégrinations. Paysages entre Nature et Histoire, published by Hazan.
- Rémi Labrusse for Préhistoire. L'envers du temps, published by Hazan,
- Pascal Rousseau for Hypnosis. Art et hypnotisme de Messmer à nos jours, published jointly by Les Beaux-Arts de Paris and Nantes Museum of Art,
- Germain Viatte for L'envers de la médaille, published by L'Atelier contemporain.
- Jérémie Koering for Les Iconophages. Une histoire de l'ingestion des images by Actes Sud.