Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
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 Location within Paris
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| Established | 1909 |
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| Location | 1 Place de la Concorde, 1st arrondissement, Paris, France |
| Coordinates | 48°51′57″N 2°19′26″E / 48.86583°N 2.32389°E |
| Type | Art museum |
| Website | www.jeudepaume.org |
The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume is an arts centre for modern and postmodern photography and media. It is located in the north corner (west side) of the Tuileries Gardens next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. In 2004, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Centre National de la Photographie and Patrimoine Photographique merged to form the Association de Préfiguration for the Etablissement Public (EPIC) Jeu de Paume.
The rectangular building was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III. It originally housed real tennis courts; the name of this game in French is jeu de paume.
Jeu de Paume was used from 1940 to 1944 to store Nazi plunder looted by the regime's Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (ERR) in France (see Rose Valland). These works included masterpieces from the collections of French Jewish families like the Rothschilds, the David-Weills, the Bernheims, and noted dealers including Paul Rosenberg who specialised in impressionist and post-impressionist works.
Hermann Göring commanded that the loot would first be divided between Adolf Hitler and himself. For this reason, from the end of 1940 to the end of 1942 he traveled twenty times to Paris. At Jeu de Paume, art dealer Bruno Lohse staged 20 expositions of the newly looted art objects, especially for Göring, from which Göring selected at least 594 pieces for his own collection; the rest was destined for the Führermuseum in Linz.
So called degenerate art (modern art "unworthy" in the eyes of the Nazis) was legally banned from entering Germany, and so once designated was held in what was called the Martyr's Room at the Jeu de Paume. Much of Paul Rosenberg's professional dealership and personal collection were subsequently so designated by the Nazis. Following Joseph Goebbels's earlier private decree to sell these degenerate works for foreign currency to fund the building of the Führermuseum and the wider war effort, Goering personally appointed a series of ERR-approved dealers including Hildebrand Gurlitt to liquidate these assets and then pass the funds to swell his personal art collection. With much of the looted degenerate art sold onwards via Switzerland, Rosenberg's collection was scattered across Europe. Unsold art (including works by Picasso and Dalí) was destroyed on a bonfire in the grounds of the Jeu de Paume on the night of 27 July 1942, an act of almost unparalleled vandalism. However, the Nazis had burned nearly 4000 works of German "degenerate" art in Berlin in 1939.
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