The Collection Lambert in Avignon is a unique contemporary art museum, the brainchild of the gallerist and art collector Yvon Lambert, who donated to the French State an exceptional collection of major works from the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st. Hosted across a pair of magnificent 18th-century mansions in the center of Avignon, the Collection Lambert regularly runs ambitious exhibitions and puts on a varied cultural and educational program supported by the State, the City of Avignon, the regional and departmental authorities, and private benefactors.

The Collection Lambert in Avignon was created in 2000. At the time Yvon Lambert’s works were on deposit and the Collection only occupied the Hôtel de Caumont. The donation of more than 550 works was made official in 2012 and in 2015 the museum’s exhibition space was expanded to nearly 5,000m2 to a design by architects Cyrille and Laurent Berger, encompassing the adjoining Hôtel de Montfaucon and the addition of an auditorium.

The artists represented in the collection, with ensembles that are in many cases unmatched by other French collections, are many and varied, with names including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Miquel Barceló, Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Lawrence Weiner, Nan Goldin, Andres Serrano, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Douglas Gordon, Cy Twombly, Niele Toroni, Bertand Lavier, Claire Fontaine, Miroslaw Balka, Adel Abdessemed, and Francesco Vezzoli.

An exhibition made up of a rotating cast of works from the permanent stock runs on a continual basis in the Hôtel de Caumont, with a focus on certain movements or artists that are especially well represented in the Collection. Alongside this, temporary exhibitions are held twice per year in the Hôtel de Montfaucon.