Paris Picasso Museum Unveils Finalists for €55M Garden

Finalists Selected for Major Sculpture Garden Project

The Musée National Picasso-Paris and Paloma Picasso announced on 11 September 2026 the five shortlisted teams competing to design a €55 million sculpture garden dedicated to Picasso’s bronzes. The winning design will be chosen by an international jury by January 2027.

This competition is a key step in creating what the museum calls the “world’s leading garden of Picasso sculptures,” set to open in the Marais district by 2030. The garden will showcase about ten major bronzes in a public setting behind the museum’s 17th-century hôtel particulier.

Design Teams and Competition Details

The five finalist teams come from a mix of architecture and landscape backgrounds, including Antoine Dufour and Wagon Landscaping; Lina Ghotmeh, Pierre-Antoine Gatier, and Florence Mercier Paysagiste; NeM Niney et Marca Architectes and Atelier Jacqueline Osty & Associés; Stanton Williams with Atelier PNG, Vogt, and Francesca Torzo; and Drubigny Architecte paired with Sarah Price Landscapes.

This international competition aims to blend architectural innovation with landscape design over a 2,300-square-meter space, integrating the museum’s existing garden with the adjacent Square Léonor-Fini public park. The project will also include an 800-square-meter exhibition corridor and renovated spaces for a bookstore and cafeteria inside the historical building.

Funding and Stakeholder Collaboration

The €55 million project is jointly funded by the Musée National Picasso-Paris, Picasso’s family, the City of Paris, and the Don Quixote Foundation, a philanthropic organization co-founded by Dutch aristocrat and venture capitalist Rolly van Rappard. The museum has already secured €40 million, partly by casting and selling four Picasso bronzes to the Don Quixote Foundation.

Since its announcement in January 2026, the Don Quixote Foundation has pledged €60 million to support the garden development and to loan a significant number of sculptures long-term. This collaboration marks a shift, as Picasso’s family previously resisted posthumous bronze casting but consented to facilitate the project’s success.

Picasso’s Sculptural Legacy and New Casts

Picasso’s sculpture work includes around 350 pieces, many of which are assemblages of found objects infused with humor and invention. The four bronzes cast for the foundation include iconic works such as La chèvre (The Goat, 1952), a life-size bronze displayed at MoMA in New York, and Petite fille sautant à la corde (Little Girl Jumping Rope, 1950).

The museum has also commissioned four new bronze casts through the Swiss foundry Saint Gallen for the garden, including the two-meter-tall Femme au jardin (Woman at the Garden, 1929-30), a painted metal homage to poet Guillaume Apollinaire. These new works will enrich the public’s access to Picasso’s three-dimensional art, which has been underrepresented in Paris’s public spaces.

Public Access and Cultural Impact

Currently, Paris features barely any public sculptures by Picasso, aside from a small piece in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This new garden will be the first major public showcase of his sculptures in the city where he lived from age 19.

Paloma Picasso emphasized her father’s wish for his sculptures to be accessible to the public and expressed satisfaction that the project will elevate Picasso’s sculptural work, often overshadowed by his paintings. The garden promises a unique cultural destination combining art, heritage, and urban green space for locals and visitors alike.

Takeaway: The Musée Picasso’s €55 million sculpture garden competition marks a landmark effort to celebrate and expand public engagement with Picasso’s sculptural oeuvre in Paris by 2030.