Musée Picasso, Antibes

With true stories, as with legends, the best ones belong to tales recounting the immanence of destiny, of the fantastic entering reality. So, once upon a time there was a Château ; like a sentry, it faced the mother of all seas, on the ramparts of a very historic small town. There was also a fabulous artist who would be famous in his century, leaving his mark forever. Their meeting must have been foretold in the stars, for Picasso might well have entered the Château Grimaldi as owner rather than invited artist. For he knew the Riviera very well and used to spend his summer holidays there from the beginning of the 1920s, between Juan-les-Pins, le cap d'Antibes and Antibes. This is how he spent the summers of 1923, 1924 and 1925 at Antibes, in a period when the Château Grimaldi, abandoned by its previous occupants, the military engineers, was put up for sale by the State. Picasso was interested and thought about buying it. But another buyer got there first : the town of Antibes, convinced of the heritage value of the building thanks to the intervention of a decisive personality.