Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain
museum in Paris, France
The Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain (French: [fɔ̃dasjɔ̃ kaʁtje puʁ laʁ kɔ̃tɑ̃pɔʁɛ̃]), known simply as the Fondation Cartier, is a contemporary art museum at 2 place du Palais-Royal in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It was located at 261 Boulevard Raspail in the 14th arrondissement of Paris until 2025, when it relocated to the Palais-Royal area, reopening to the public on 25 October 2025.
History
The Fondation Cartier was created in 1984 by the Cartier SA firm as a center for contemporary art that presents exhibits by established artists, offers young artists a chance to debut, and incorporates works into its collection. The founding director was Marie-Claude Beaud.
In 1994, it moved to a glass building at 261 Boulevard Raspail designed by Pritzker Prize architect Jean Nouvel on the site of the former American Center for Students and Artists, surrounded by a modern woodland garden landscaped by Lothar Baumgarten. The ground floor of the building is eight meters (26 feet) high and glassed in on all sides.
In 2011, the president and founder of the Fondation Cartier, Alain Dominique Perrin, asked Nouvel to draw up preliminary plans for a new base on Île Seguin. By 2014, the foundation abandoned plans to relocate to the island and instead commissioned Nouvel to work on the expansion of the Boulevard Raspail premises. By 2024, Fondation Cartier presented Nouvel's designs for a new site opposite the Louvre, occupying more than 8,400 m2 (90,000 sq ft) on the ground floor and lower levels of a listed building.
Collection
The museum displays exhibits of contemporary and international artists, and currently contains over 1500 works by more than 350 artists.
The public source identifies “Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain” as museum in Paris, France. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fondation, Cartier and pour.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1284688. VIAF identifies the subject as 149766738. The Library of Congress control number is n85241524. Authority coordinates are 48.863, 2.337. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 1984, 1994 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.