Plenty to pique your interest
The list of museums and art centres in Finistère is so long that it’s hard to describe all the unique features of these places and collections. The settings are strikingly real, as with the incredible German command bunker in Plougonvelin. As you visit these places, you’re accompanied by sound effects, visual animations and interactive displays, so it’s impossible to get bored in Finistère’s museums and art centres! Whether you’re interested in fine art, history, ethnography, archaeology, science or contemporary art, Finistère certainly has plenty to pique your interest.
A little history
Museums and art centres in town and country alike welcome you right across the county for some amazing immersive discoveries. Near Trégarvan, you can go back to school, where younger children will love the odd experience of discovering inkwells and geography maps under the slightly nostalgic gaze of their parents. At the Musée vivant des vieux métiers (living museum of bygone trades) in Argol, the Écomusée ecomuseum in Plouigneau or the Ecomuseum of the Arrée Mountains, you can step back in time into rural life and heritage from hundreds of years ago.
Major exhibitions
In the fine-arts museums of Quimper, Pont-Aven and Brest, you can learn all about the pictorial choices of the synthesist movement by admiring works by Gauguin and his friends from the Pont-Aven School and many other artistic movements. Discover the iconic landscapes captured by the masters who painted French Cornwall, from Le Pouldu to Châteauneuf-du-Faou, where the Musée Sérusier project is about to be launched. As for contemporary art, we have a wide range of pioneering exhibitions, including those at the Hélène & Édouard Leclerc Fund for Culture in Landerneau.
At the heart of the ocean
At the 70.8 Ocean Museum in Brest, scientists and industrialists share their expertise on the ocean, to help preserve it and to meet the social and environmental challenges of tomorrow, educating young and old alike. The National Marine Museum in Brest also has some exceptional works on display, including the Canot de l’Empereur, its models and its navigation instruments. In Douarnenez, housed in a former canning factory, the Port-Musée is France’s most maritime museum, displaying tens of thousands of maritime objects, more than 280 boats and even some floating boats you can visit on the quayside.
The world of fishing
The Musée de la Conserverie Le Gall tells the story of the tinned-fish industry in Loctudy, a true immersion into the daily life of the workers. In Guilvinec, France’s top small-scale fishing port, you can explore the fascinating world of sea fishing at Haliotika, Cité de la Pêche and not far away, in Concarneau, the Musée de la Pêche (Fishing Museum) invites you to step into the boots of a fisherman on board a deep-sea trawler.
Fantastic places
In Finistère, you can also discover large-scale events and temporary exhibitions in exceptional locations that are already steeped in history, such as the ruins of an ancient abbey in Landévennec, where the oldest buildings date back to the Middle Ages and conjure up visions of what life would have been like for the monks. In Pont-l’Abbé, the Château des Barons du Pont museum has installed its impressive collection that is the only one of its kind in Brittany, showcasing over 500 different headdresses, including the unique Bigouden headdress! Finally, in Quimper, the former Bishops’ Palace houses some very rich collections of archaeology, ancient art and folk art.
Museums of France in Finistère
More than a dozen museums in Finistère have been awarded the ‘Musée de France’ label, in recognition of the public interest of their collections and their work to educate and welcome the public.
So take the opportunity to discover them – or to come back for more!
- Brest Museum of Fine Arts
- Museum of the Former Abbey in Landévennec
- Douarnenez Port-Musée
- Museum of Pont-Aven
- Bigouden Museum in Pont-l’Abbé (currently under construction)
- Museum of Fine Arts in Quimper (currently under construction)
- Arrée Mountains Ecomuseum in Commana, Saint-Rivoal
- Morlaix Museum (currently under construction)
- Museum of Rural Schooling in Brittany, Trégarvan
- Breton Departmental Museum in Quimper
- Fishing Museum in Concarneau