Photo: DR

On the heights of Cannes, Mougins has enjoyed a privileged location since antiquity. The village which stretches out like a spiral snail its ancestral alleys overlooks both the blue of the Mediterranean Sea, with in the distance the bay of Cannes and the Lérins Islands while on its northern slope, it embraces the green of the surrounding hills towards Grasse, up to the first peaks of the snow-capped Alps. In the twentieth century, cubist and surrealist painters were not mistaken. Attracted by the intense and special light that has always floated over the city, Francis Picabia was the first to settle there in 1925 and build his house, the Château de Mai, according to his plans.

Others will follow in delegation fascinated by the sumptuousness of the places: Fernand Léger, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, Jean Cocteau, Isadora Duncan, Man Ray, but also a certain Pablo Picasso already crowned with his growing notoriety. Between 1936 and 1938, he stayed for a festive holiday at the Vaste Horizon hotel, located at the entrance of the old village. But Picasso appreciated Mougins so much that he settled there definitively in 1969 with his last wife Jacqueline Roque. He acquired a huge NotreDame-de-Vie property, which he nicknamed “the Minotaur's Lair”. This period will be extremely prolific with more than 300 works, the famous painter sculptor locking himself in his villa and gradually cutting himself almost completely from the world. The Spanish genius lived there for the last twelve years of his life and breathed his last there on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91.

Photo: DR

A Classic Art Museum

It is on this tune of melody in major art that in 2009, Christian Levett, an English businessman collector from a young age, literally falls in love with the village.

He acquired a house there, transforming it into a real showcase which, since 2011, has housed hundreds of works of art from his private collections within the Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins (MACM). The ambition of the project, which has become a reality, is to bring together ancient, neoclassical, modern and contemporary art in one place, in order to show the major influence played by the ancient world on classical and contemporary creation. On four floors, the museum seeks to highlight the influences of the civilizations of Egypt, Rome, and Greece between them, and the continuity of the Greco-Roman heritage until today.

This original museographic concept moves away from a chronological presentation to highlight the interaction of civilizations from east to west. Along the route, remarkable ancient works such as Greco-Italian vases, colossal statues of Emperor Hadrian and Empress Domitia, or even the delicate bronze representation of Heracles interact with a hundred drawings, paintings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, MichelMartin Drolling, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Henri Matisse, or Marc Quinn.

Photo: DR

Happiness is in the plate

Since at least the beginning of the XNUMXth century, Mougins has been synonymous with good food and gluttony.

In the fifties, Célestin Véran, cook in the national navy then fisherman in Cannes, in turn understood that tourism was going to develop. He transforms his boat into a "sea taxi", fishing and at the same time taking the rich and idle English out for a ride, who have come to spend the winter months in the warm sun of the Côte d'Azur. Its customers get into the habit of “going up” to Mougins to taste its famous bouillabaisse prepared with its fresh peach and discover the sweetness of life in the village, the freshness of the small shady places.

But it was in 1969 that chef Roger Vergé, a native of Allier, moved to Mougins. A true precursor, it dust and lightens French cuisine. He invented "La Cuisine du Soleil" which he made known throughout the world, contributing to the development of the reputation of French gastronomy.

Photo: DR

In the firmament of the stars

Today, around fifty local, bistronomic and gourmet cuisine restaurants contribute to the gastronomic reputation of Mougins, both in France and abroad. In 2006, to pay tribute to chef Roger Vergé, the mayor of Mougins, Richard Galy had the idea of ​​creating the first International Festival of Gastronomy Les Etoiles de Mougins. Very quickly, demonstrations, cooking workshops, interactive conferences, chefs' rally, culinary happenings, gastronomic bookstore bring the village to life.

The most prestigious guests of honor have followed one another giving the festival its letters of nobility: Christian Willer, Marc Veyrat, Éric Fréchon, Anne-Sophie Pic, Gérard Passédat, Daniel Boulud, Frédéric Anton, Thierry Marx, Philippe Etchebest ...

In April 2019, La Brigade des Étoiles de Mougins was created. Composed of around fifty French and foreign starred chefs, Meilleur Ouvrier de France chefs with prestigious blue-white-red collars, they become Ambassadors of Mougins and of French gastronomy within the framework of their establishments and their multiple travels around the world. This year, the Etoiles de Mougins have been postponed due to a planetary pandemic.

We can bet that in June 2021, under the aegis of its guest of honor, Top Chef Jacques Maximin, it will definitely place Mougins in the sky of the stars ...

David Raynal

To know more : https://mougins.fr/

To read our last article on the same subject :

The Stars of Mougins postponed to June 2021