Museum

The library

Due to the museum being closed for renovations, the library will reopen in February 2026.

The digital catalog

With over 56 000 books and magazines on 20th and 21st century art, the LaM library is a reference for everything related to modern art, contemporary art, and outsider art.

The library also subscribes to nearly 50 national and international periodicals: general publications such as Art Press, Beaux-Arts Magazine, Connaissance des Arts, and L’œil, and specialized publications such as: Les Cahiers du MNAM, Esse, Grey Room, Marges, and Raw Vision. These magazines are freely available on site.

The library fund - Major donations

When Geneviève and Jean Masurel donated their original collection to the LaM, they also wanted a library to be created within the museum. They donated part of their own library and that of Roger Dutilleul, which contained a wealth of material on the first half of the 20th century, particularly on Cubism and Naïve art. This initial collection has been supplemented over the years by donations and bequests. 

In 1994, Dominique Bozo, former director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne and president of the Centre Pompidou, bequeathed more than 5,500 books on modern and contemporary art. Maurice Jardot, director of the Louise Leiris Gallery, heir to the gallery of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a long-time dealer for the Cubists, bequeathed over 2,000 books, including around a hundred illustrated by artists such as André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Both knew Jean Masurel well and wished to demonstrate their commitment to the museum.

In 1999, the L’Aracine association donated its library and archives, making the LaM library a leading collection of outsider art, which has since been supplemented by donations such as that of Michel Nedjar, a founding member of L’Aracine, and Kiyoko Lerner, heir to the works of Henry Darger. The library is enriched each year by 500 to 800 works through donations, exchanges, and purchases.

A reference in art brut

The library's collection constitutes a reference collection in France on art brut. More than 3,500 books and magazines from the 19th century to the most recent works document the artists and the reception of their works: historical works such as those by Marcel Réja, Hans Prinzhorn or Jean Dubuffet, pamphlets published in the 1950s-1980s, catalogs of French or international exhibitions... The collection is also rich in complete collections of magazines such as Les Fascicules de l'art brut, Gazogène, Zon'art, Les Friches de l'art or L'œuf sauvage.

Rich archives complete this collection. Those of L’Aracine bring together files of artists present or not in the collection, documentary files on institutions, museums and galleries presenting art brut, thematic files on spiritists and mediums, landscape inhabitants or children’s drawings, as well as documentation produced by L’Aracine itself in the context of its various activities. The archives of Michel Nedjar, rich in photographs, correspondence and documents, document both his own work and the history of L’Aracine. The archives of Louise Tournay donated by Claire Teller, those relating to Augustin Lesage donated by her niece, on Henry Darger by Kiyoko Lerner, those on the Facteur Cheval by Claude and Clovis Prévost, those of André Escard on art brut and singular, or those of the psychiatrist Claude Wiart, offer the researcher remarkable documents.

Find the inventories of these funds on the INHA website and the CCfr: Lesage I Facteur Cheval/Prévost I L’Aracine I Louise Tournay

 

A remarkable heritage

The Dominique Bozo Library also boasts a remarkable collection of avant-garde and surrealist journals, including: Cahiers d'art, Documents, L'Esprit nouveau, Verve, La Révolution surréaliste, Le surréalisme au service de la révolution, Médium, Néon, L'archibras, and more.

Francis Bacon, André Derain, Georges Braque, André Masson, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, as well as Ida Appelbroog, Pierre Buraglio, Daniel Dezeuze, Allan McCollum, Jean-Luc Parant, and Vladimir Velickovic: the library houses a precious collection of books illustrated with original engravings and artists' books, notably from the bequests of Dominique Bozo and Maurice Jardot.

These books can be found in the museum's displays and exhibitions, as well as in the library's dedicated display case. Presentations focusing on these books are regularly held at the library: see the museum's program! Some of these works, both books and artworks, are also in the museum's online collection.

 

Autres ressources

The landscape inhabitants

From the archival funds kept in the library, the museum has launched a database of landscape residents, these men and women who, like the postman Cheval, transformed their living spaces to better “inhabit the world poetically”. New content from the museum’s archives and contributions from Internet users regularly enrich the database.

The researsch book 

The library launched an online research notebook, on the Hypotheses portal, which aims to report on the research conducted by the LaM. This notebook also reflects the work carried out on the collection through research programs, residencies for teacher-researchers and artists, study days and calls for papers with which the LaM is associated. It also aims to be a space for sharing and exchanging ideas about the specificities of its collection and is thus enriched by posts from researchers and the museum's curatorial team.