Sunbathing With the Masters

By LANIE GOODMAN | SPECIAL TO THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Nice, France

When artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir was advised to move south to relieve his arthritis, he bought the Domaine des Colettes in 1907, an olive grove in the heights of Cagnes-sur-Mer near Nice, and built a house and studio where he lived and worked until his death in 1919. "The olive tree, what a brute!" Renoir told art collector René Gimpel. "How those little leaves have made me sweat. One gust of wind and the whole tree changes color."

Fondation Hartung Bergman

The artist captured the clear air and intensely luminous colors of the Mediterranean landscape in such masterpieces as "The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes" (1908-14) and led an influx of artists into the area.

Southern village life was cheaper than Paris, and the dry, haze-free weather around Nice attracted the Impressionists and others amid the rise of plein air painting at the end of the 19th century. Claude Monet said he loved "this fairytale-like air." Pierre Bonnard said, "in the south of France, everything sparkles and the whole painting vibrates." Matisse, Picasso and Chagall took up residence.

A host of less well-known artists working in a variety of media also built homes and ateliers here -- from Le Corbusier to Hans Hartung to Henry Clews. Many have been turned into museums, or in the case of the artist Nall, a working studio open to the public. (Visiting hours are variable or by appointment, see accompanying travel tips.)

A close-up look at the artists' homes and work spaces, all within an easy drive from Nice, illuminates how the artists drew inspiration from the Côte d'Azur landscape.

Two groundbreaking minimalist designers built homes side-by-side about 20 kilometers northeast of Nice, on the peninsula of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin near Menton.

Irish designer Eileen Gray built Villa E1027, and next door Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier built Le Cabanon, a spartan beach hut. The site has towering yuccas, lemon and carob trees, pink oleander and a sweeping view of the sea.

Gray built Villa E1027 in 1929 at the behest of her lover, Polish architect Jean Badovici -- the villa's name was a numerical code version of theirs. The stark white rectangular house on stilts was highly experimental, with two ground floors, a red outdoor kitchen and a stairway to the roof. The entrance was marked, Entrez Lentement (Enter Slowly); other whimsical phrases were stenciled on the wall, such as "Laughter Forbidden" and "Invitation au Voyage." The rooms were filled with pivoting and folding cabinets, lounge chairs, brilliant-colored carpets and metal screens and lights, all Gray's own designs (including what would become one of her most popular pieces, the circular glass-and-chrome side table, named the E1027 after the villa).

Gray studied the light, the wind and the terrain, devised a system of natural ventilation and sliding shutters, and calculated the path of the solar rays in the living room to create effects of shadow and light. She organized the space so that the outside landscape was fused to the villa's interiors to give a feeling of spaciousness.

Le Corbusier, who was a friend and a mentor to the couple, was a frequent guest at Villa E1027. Gray and Badovici broke up in 1932, and in 1938, Le Corbusier moved in as Badovici's guest, and painted the walls in his own style, with bold primary colors and erotic figures. It infuriated Gray, who considered it vandalism.

Abandoned over the years, the villa was almost in ruins earlier this decade when the French cultural ministry began a complete restoration. It is scheduled to open to visitors in January. Le Corbusier's murals will remain, with a masking system for a "before and after" effect.

Le Corbusier himself remained attached to the spot, and in 1952 he built a tiny seaside cabin just meters away from Villa E1027. This square studio, just 3.66 meters a side (and 2.26 meters high, the height of an average man when he raises his arms) is a study in small-scale simplicity, characteristic of the architect's rigorous experimentation with a modular single room. There's a bed with a wood sculpted pillow, a pivoting table, two cubes that serve as seats, a closet, a desk and a sink, livened up by a yellow floor, a green and orange ceiling and vivid wall paintings.

The hut also has a hidden door that leads to the simple Provençal restaurant called l'Etoile de Mer, frescoed by "Corbu," as he was called, which he and his wife treated as their private canteen. "They weren't fond of cooking," says architect Robert Rebutato, the son of the restaurant's owners. "They liked my parents' cuisine so much, they decided to build their beach hut right next door."

Just behind Villa E1027 are five Corbusier-designed camping units, each 2.26 meters a side. The Rebutato family donated the property to the restoration project. Le Corbusier died while swimming in the sea here in 1965, and is buried in the Roquebrune cemetery.

Traveling southwest from Nice about 20 kilometers (past Renoir's house in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where the studio and rose-filled garden are perhaps the best-known on the trail of atelier museums), one reaches another minimalist gem in the wooded hills of Antibes.

German-born abstract artist Hans Hartung designed this stark whitewashed villa, the atelier and its annexes amid an olive grove. The artist, known for abstract works that balance spontaneous black drawing (often scratched by olive branches from his grove) and zones of dazzling color, lived here from 1973 until his death in 1989 with his wife, Norwegian painter Anne-Eva Bergman. Hartung calculated every sharp line of the design, from the pool where he swam every morning to the huge bay windows in the living room overlooking the grassy park, measured to match the dimensions of his colossal canvases. The house and studio were big enough for Hartung to work in very large formats, since he used wide brushes and rollers to scrape the still-wet paint -- which would be difficult in a small urban studio.

The Hartung-Bergman Foundation opened the villa as a museum in 2006 and offers guided tours of the sprawling property, which houses over 16,000 paintings, engravings and photos. The highlight is Hartung's paint-splattered atelier, with an array of his brushes, styluses, spray guns and rollers.

Also on display are a permanent collection of Bergman's abstract paintings -- minimalist renditions of trees, boats, glaciers, suns and moons -- and a revolving miniexhibition of paintings from Hartung's vast storeroom.

The villa represented Hartung's desire to keep his paintings assembled in one place; by 1964, he'd stopped selling his canvases in the hopes of someday creating his own foundation. "It is true happiness for a painter to be a master of his works," he wrote. The peaceful secluded property allowed for just that: space, privacy and autonomy. "The artist, especially, must remain free from all outer restraints," Hartung would later say.

This year, more than 250 of Hartung's works -- many more than can be shown at the villa -- are on loan from the foundation for the show "Hans Hartung, Gesture and Method" at La Fondation Maeght in nearby St. Paul de Vence, which runs until Nov. 16.

Fifteen kilometers further southwest is Villa Domergue, hidden away in Cannes's La Californie neighborhood, minutes from where Picasso once lived (the Picasso house and studio are now owned by his granddaughter, Marina Picasso, and not open to the public).

Painter and Art Nouveau poster artist Jean-Gabriel Domergue and his wife, Odette Maudrange, a sculptress, finished building their villa in 1936, transforming a bare hilltop into a Florentine-inspired home with movie-set atmosphere.

They planted towering cypresses and oaks in the terraced gardens that overlook the bay of Cannes, created fountains and waterfalls, and filled the buff-colored stone house and landscaped paths with Maudrange's sleekly modernist sculptures of animals and human torsos in dark stone (over 60 of their joint works remain there today). They added rare collectibles from their world travels -- everything from Etruscan vases to their own custom-designed Murano glass chandeliers.

Though Domergue was initially a landscape painter, the artist's greatest success and fortune came from fashionable portraits of svelte swan-necked young models or dancers, often the mistresses of his moneyed Parisian clientele, who came down to Cannes for the social season. Claiming to be the original inventor of the sexy pin-up model, Domergue also drew famous ads for the Côte d'Azur -- stylish sylphs in slinky gowns and oversize hats, flanked by towering palms -- which were reproduced as postcards and sold everywhere on the Riviera, contributing to the area's glamorous image.

"Domergue was quite a bon vivant and a notorious womanizer," says Frédéric Ballester, curator of the Villa Domergue collection. Among the nine large canvases that hang in the former atelier are two nudes of Josephine Baker, who was a frequent guest at the villa, which was donated to the city of Cannes in 1979. Today it is often used for parties during the Cannes film festival.

The artist and his wife are buried in sculpted stone tombs -- a realistic rendition of the couple in a romantic pose, designed by Maudrange -- in a flower-lined corner of the garden, facing the sea.

Domergue took a keen interest in his eccentric neighbor, Henry Clews, who lived down the road in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, just west of Cannes. Domergue, who wrote the introduction to André Maurois's "The Strange World of Henry Clews," recalls the first time he saw the sculptor from afar in Cannes, impressed by his elegant bohemian air and a Napoleon III goatee. "He should have been born in the Renaissance," Domergue wrote.

The Chateau de la Napoule, a turreted seaside fairytale castle built on Saracen ruins, was completely rebuilt, stone by stone, and designed by Clews, an expatriate Wall Street banker-turned-artist, and his wife, Marie. The Clewses had moved from New York to wartime Paris in 1914, and three years later, when their young son fell dangerously ill during the Spanish flu epidemic, the family headed south to settle in a warmer climate. They checked into the Hotel du Cap in Antibes (the idyllic spot that American painter Gerald Murphy would discover several years later) and learned that an old abandoned castle was for sale. They launched into a restoration of the castle and gardens that would last 18 years, supervised by Marie and executed by 12 Florentine stonecutters. Above the castle door entrance was marked the inscription "Once upon a Time."

A self-trained painter and sculptor who studied briefly with Rodin, Clews was one of many eccentric expatriates welcomed on the Riviera in the freewheeling 1920s. The château offers guided tours of the castle and cloister, replete with Clews's imaginary kingdom of bizarre carvings -- big-bellied stone demons inspired by Pre-Columbian art and laughing gnomes in blocks of pink, grey and green porphyry, as well as a life-size bronze Christ-like figure -- modeled on himself -- in the castle courtyard.

Clews and his wife are buried in a sculpted crypt in a remote corner of the palm-shaded formal gardens. The orange groves and labyrinths (where Clews's all-white bulldogs, peacocks and marabous used to wander) are now used as an exhibition space for sculptors-in-residence. The terrace restaurant has a dreamy sea view.

For a glimpse into an active studio, head inland about 20 kilometers to the N.A.L.L. Foundation, located on a nine-acre estate in Vence. Alabama-born painter Nall (born Nall Hollis), spent six years building his home on the ruins of the oldest house in Vence, built in 1605. It's a joyous jumble of styles: a frieze of original ceramic tiles by Matisse line the entrance, the ancient carved wooden doors are from Jaipur and the stained glass window is from a cathedral in Algiers. Every wall and ceiling is ablaze with Nall's paintings and drawings: canvases of "bleeding pansies" -- flowers that seep with Pollock-like drippings; a sober series of black-and-white sparrows; a flashy pop painting (commissioned by Christian Dior) in which giant tubes of lipstick double as the Twin Towers.

Nall, 60, considers himself a spiritual descendent of Niçois symbolist Gustav Adolf Mossa -- a connection he discovered only after moving to the south of France -- and is best known for his combination of the baroque and a Dali-esque surrealism.

The foundation operates an artists' residence for a dozen American students, who are given everything from drawing lessons to advice on how to trim the olive trees in the lavender-scented gardens. "Art should not be separate from life," says Nall. "There must be complete harmony between the two."

• Write to us at wsje.weekend@wsj.com.

Nall
The N.A.L.L. Art Association
Venice

Photos: The N.A.L.L. Art Association

33-4-93-58-13-26 www.nall.org

Hans Hartung
Fondation Hartung Bergman
Antibes

Photos: Fondation Hartung Bergman

33-4-93-33-45-92 www.fondationhartungbergman.fr

Eileen Gray
Villa E1027
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

33-4-93-35-62-87 www.roquebrune-cap-martin.com

Le Corbusier
Le Cabanon
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin

Photos: © SABAM Belgium 2008

33-4-93-35-62-87 www.roquebrune-cap-martin.com

Henry Clews
Château de La Napoule
Mandelieu-la-Napoule

Photos: Chateau de la Napoule

33-4-93-49-95-05 www.lnaf.org

Jean-Gabriel Domergue
La Villa Domergue
Cannes

33-4-97-06-44-90 www.cannes.com

Trip Planner: Where the Art Is

Fly into Nice, rent a car at the airport, and use Nice as a base. Most of the ateliers in this story are within 30 kilometers of Nice, and roughly along the E80 motorway. Expect summer crowds in July and August, but it's quieter up in the hills. September is the loveliest month to visit.

Where to Stay

Joe LeMonnier

The charming Hotel Windsor is an artsy, family-run hotel, located in the heart of Nice's shopping district, and packed with contemporary art. About half of the 57 rooms were decorated by internationally known artists (including Ben, Claudio Parmiggiani and Glen Baxter); there's everything from minimalist to whimsical, but all are comfortable and affordable. A highlight is a small pool in the palm-shaded garden, where breakfast is served (€120-€175; 33-493-88-59-35; www.hotelwindsornice.com).

Another option located near the contemporary galleries is la MOMA, a two-room guesthouse run by designer couple Valérie Arboireau and Peter Larsen (€90; 33-660-57-49-59; www.moma-nice.com).

If you prefer staying inland, the pine-shaded hills of twin villages St. Paul de Vence and Vence have attracted artists since the 1920s, including Picasso, Braque, Miro and Chagall to Derain, Soutine, Signac, Modigliani, Matisse, Dubuffet and Arman.

Book well in advance for a room at La Colombe d'Or, the renowned artists' hotel (with 16 rooms, 10 apartments) at the entrance of St. Paul de Vence, a veritable museum of original paintings and sculptures by many of the artists who spent time in the area. A highlight, the dreamy black-tiled pool flanked by Calder mobiles. Fortunately, you don't have to be a guest to dine on the lovely fig-shaded terrace, surrounded by works of Miro, Braque, Léger and César (rooms €285-€380, dinner about €65; 33-493-32-80-02; www.la-colombe-dor.com).

Stylish guesthouses filled with contemporary artwork also abound in the area. Best bets: La Maison du Frêne (€140; 33-6-88-90-49-69; www.lamaisondufrene.com); La Toile Blanche (€250; www.toileblanche.com); and La Forge de Hautrives (€130; 33-4-93-89-73-34; www.maison-dhauterives.com).

Aspiring artists or art teachers with small groups of students may opt for a weekly rental of Matisse's former home, Villa Le Rêve, where the great master lived in 1943. Run by the Vence Tourist Office, the villa sleeps up to 15 and also has an atelier workspace (€2,500 per week; 33-493-58-82-68; www.villalerevevence.com).

What to Do

While in Nice, Matisse enthusiasts can have a look (from the outside only) at the artist's former digs in Old Nice and Cimiez (pick up a map of the itinerary "In the footsteps of Matisse" at the tourist office, 5 Promenade des Anglais).

The sprawling marble Museum of Modern Art (MAMAC) on the fringe of Old Town is the home of contemporary European and American works, with great seasonal shows and an impressive permanent collection that includes members of the Nice school and the New Realists, from Arman and César to Niki de Saint-Phalle and Yves Klein. Check out the works of Raymond Hains and Ben, both of whom designed rooms at the Windsor. Nice's avant-garde art school, the Villa Arson, also holds cutting-edge seasonal exhibitions.

Explore the Belle-Époque architecture in the hilltop neighborhood of Cimiez, where you'll also find the Matisse Museum. Matisse and Raoul Dufy are buried in the nearby cemetery. Just down the hill is the Chagall Museum, also well worth a visit.

In the Vence area, the contemporary art museums include La Fondation Maeght (St. Paul de Vence), the Matisse Chapelle de la Rosaire (St. Paul de Vence) and La Fondation Emile Hugues (Vence).

Modern design buffs shouldn't miss a visit to the mountain village of Gourdon (a 20-minute drive from St. Paul de Vence) to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs et de la Modernité, housed in a medieval stone castle, with an outstanding 1930s furniture collection with rare pieces by Eileen Gray, Robert Mallet-Stevens, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Pierre Chareau (Château de Gourdon; guided visits by appointment; 33-493-09-68-02; www.chateau-gourdon.com).