An elegant woman dressed head to toe in white poses on the sun-drenched Boulevard de la Croisette, along the French Riviera. Her streamlined silhouette is the height of fashion, and a flash of red at her mouth suggests she is a figure of both refinement and seduction. In the roughly sketched scene behind her elegant outline, the sweeping lines of a yacht meet a row of luscious palms. To the right of the painting, the curves of a yellow sports car dissolve into sparse brushstrokes that hint at the façade of a luxury hotel.
This artwork, titled The White Lady, was created by the Dutch/French Fauvist Kees van Dongen. Although understated, it captures the glitz and glamour of Cannes – that jewel in the crown of the French Riviera – which by the 1920s had transformed itself from a genteel winter resort into a summer playground for the artistic, aristocratic and otherwise moneyed American set.
The Royal Academy’s newest exhibition celebrates this evolution, paying heed to the constellation of artists who became enraptured by the region’s glittering sea, lush vegetation and astonishing natural light. Among the first were Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, who made a life-altering coastal excursion together in 1883. The former was so taken with the rural simplicity of Cagnes-sur-Mer that he eventually settled there (although he built a more refined property next to his rustic farmhouse). His friend went on to make several solo expeditions, painting views of Bordighera over the border in Italy, Cap-Martin and Antibes in what he called an act of ‘fencing, wrestling with the sun’. (A gallery in the show is dedicated to his work from this period.)
This obsession with the intensity of light carried through to Neo-Impressionists such as Paul Signac and Théo van Rysselberghe. Their Pointillist style was concerned with the illusionary qualities held in daubs of pure colour. In Signac’s Le Pin de Bertaud, for example, an elegant pine tree is illuminated as if on fire, and the mauve-hued haze reveals the outline of Saint-Tropez in the distance. The artist became captivated by the port town (then only accessible by boat) after he arrived there on his own small yacht Olympia in 1892, and would go on to gain the respect and favour of the local inhabitants.
Less intrepid, but no less enthusiastic transplants included Pierre Bonnard, who made his home in the town of Le Cannet and took in sea views, and Pablo Picasso, who sought tranquillity among the quiet streets of Antibes. In 1946 he took up a studio in Château Grimaldi (it is now a museum dedicated to the artist) and entered an industrious period using any materials he could get his hands on, including plywood and enamel paint. He went on to establish a studio inside a Belle Epoque villa in Cannes – his monumental work The Bay of Cannes is a highlight of the RA show.
While plenty of the artists featured focused on the outdoors, Henri Matisse explored both interior and exterior scenes. His wintertime visits saw him experiment with a motif recurrent in what is termed his ‘Nice period’, where the surroundings of his rooms at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, Hôtel de la Mediterranée and later dwellings frame the luminous sea view beyond. The magic of the coastline and the banality of everyday living converge on the canvas, anchored by the presence of a female model. Matisse fell in love with the city, writing in a letter of 1952: ‘When I realised that every morning I would see this light again, I could not describe my joy. I decided not to leave Nice, and I stayed there practically all my life’.
‘Painting the French Riviera’ runs 2 October–31 January at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1. For more information visit royalacademy.org.uk
A version of this article appears in the October 2026 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers
