Museum of African, Marseille

The Museum of African, Oceanic and Amerindian Arts, located on the second floor of the Vieille Charité in the 2nd arrondissement of Marseille, presents works exclusively dedicated to works from the African, Oceanic and Amerindian continents. On the second floor of the building is the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology. The museum of African, Oceanian and Amerindian arts reconciles the observation of the objects exhibited with scientific information on people and societies. In particular, there are masks from large collections built up during the 20th century, which took part in the first exhibitions of these non-European arts in the years 1930-1935, associated with the renewal of views and the first ethnographic, ethnological and anthropological studies of these cultures, alongside modern art. With Mexican popular arts, bright colors and fantasy are everywhere present, a fantasy art that has inspired many artists and poets in the twentieth century and still today.

The works are exhibited in three rooms on the second floor of the Vieille Charité: The Africa room, where the donation made by the heirs of the Marseille lawyer Pierre Guerre, a great collector of African art, is exhibited: masks, statues, reliquaries. To this collection are added various objects from the city's former colonial museums, which had been deposited with the Marseille Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Oceania and America room, where the remarkable collection of Dr. Gastaut is presented. It is made up of sculpted, painted, over-modeled or engraved human skulls, and was acquired by the city in 1989. In addition to this collection, there are objects on deposit or from collections made by the museum in Vanuatu. Also on display are magnificent Amerindian feather ornaments donated by medical doctor Marcel Heckenroth, which he received as gifts during his service in French Guiana between 1939 and 1942. The Mexico room is devoted to a collection of folk art with more than three thousand objects, some of which are on display: masks, ceramics, thread paintings, trees of life, sculptures, collected by the filmmaker François Reichenbach during his many trips to this country and bequeathed by himself to the city of Marseille.