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Hauts-de-France / France

Hauts-de-France fʁɑ̃s], meaning "Upper France") is the northernmost region of France, created by the territorial reform of French Regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its capital is Lille. The new region came into existence on 1 January 2016, after the regional elections in December 2015. France's Conseil d'État approved Hauts-de-France as the name of the region on 28 September 2016, effective 30 September 2016.With 6,009,976 inhabitants and a population density of 189 inhabitants/km2, it is the third most populous region in France and the second most densely populated in metropolitan France after its southern neighbour Île-de-France.

Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Hauts-de-France / France

The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille is a municipal museum dedicated to fine arts, modern art, and antiquities. It is one of the largest art museums in France. It was one of the first museums built in France, established under the instructions of Napoleon I at the beginning of the 19th century as part of the popularisation of art. Jean-Antoine Chaptal's decree of 1801 selected fifteen French cities to receive the works seized from churches and from the European territories occupied by the armies of Revolutionary France. The painters Louis Joseph Watteau and François Watteau, known as the "Watteau of Lille", were heavily involved in the museum's beginnings - Louis Joseph Watteau made in 1795 the first inventory of the paintings confiscated during the Revolution, whilst his son François was deputy curator of the museum from 1808 to 1823. The museum opened in 1809 and was initially housed in a church confiscated from the Récollets before being transferred to the city's town hall. In 1866, the "musée Wicar", formed from the collection of Jean-Baptiste Wicar, was merged into the Palais des Beaux-Arts. Construction of the Palais's current Belle Époque-style building began in 1885 under the direction of Géry Legrand, mayor of Lille, and it was completed in 1892. The architects chosen to design the new building were Edouard Bérard and Fernand Etienne-Charles Delmas from Paris. The building is located on the place de la République, in the center of the city, facing the préfecture of Lille. It was renovated during the 1990s and reopened in 1997. At the start of the 1990s, the building's poor state and the moving of Vauban's relief models of fortified towns to Lille forced the town to renovate the building. Work began in 1991, under the architects Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, and was completed in 1997. This allowed the creation of a new 700 m2 basement room for temporary exhibitions, as well as departments for the relief models and for 19th-century sculpture. Overall the museum covers 22000 m2 and held 72430 pieces as of 2015, one of the largest provincial collections of fine art. The collection includes works by Raphael, Donatello, Van Dyck, Tissot, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Goya, El Greco, David, Corot, Courbet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Delacroix, Rubens, Rodin, Claudel and Jean-Baptiste Chardin.

La Piscine Museum

Hauts-de-France / France

La Piscine is a museum of art and industry, located in the city of Roubaix in northern France. It is more formally known as La Piscine-Musée d'Art et d'Industrie André Diligent or Le musée d'Art et d'Industrie de la ville de Roubaix, but its common name derives from the fact that it is housed in a former indoor swimming pool, with a notable art deco interior.

Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art

Hauts-de-France / France

The Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art , formerly known as Villeneuve d'Ascq Museum of Modern Art, is an art museum in Villeneuve d'Ascq, France. With more than 4,500 artworks on a 4,000-square-metre exhibition area, the LaM is the only museum in Europe to present simultaneously the main components of the 20th and 21st centuries art : modern art, contemporary art and outsider art. LaM's holdings include some masterpieces of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder and the biggest outsider art collection in France. LaM possesses also a library and a rich park of sculptures. The museum's collection offers an overview in modern and contemporary art, including drawings, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books and artist's books, and electronic media.