As noted in the Wall Street Journal and numerous other accounts, the Picasso Museum’s reopening signals a distinct new chapter in its 30-year-history. Political squabbles and staff hostility to the former director, the Picasso scholar Anne Baldassari, are now a thing of the past, and the museum has a new president in Laurent Le Bon, who ran the Pompidou’s affiliate museum in Metz. The renovation will enable the display of some works that exceeded the previous building’s ceiling height. Among the new pieces will be plaster models of Picasso’s lover (and mother of Picasso’s daughter) Marie-Thérèse Walter. Judging from the great number of people – some 13,000 - who previewed the renovated structure in September, the Picasso Museum will be a huge draw for tourists.

And that’s not all the big news for the Paris art scene:

In a defiant riposte to critics who say Paris has fallen behind as a leader in avant-garde art, the super-futuristic Louis Vuitton Foundation museum by architect Frank Gehry is now open for visitors in a park-like setting north of Paris. Not surprisingly given the money and talent involved, Gehry’s imaginative design is a dazzler - a thrilling arrangement of soaring glass panels that from an aerial view resemble a series of glassy clouds, or vertical and horizontal kites filled to swelling by a strong breeze. The surface area of the museum is 11,700 square meters, or 126,000 square feet. New York Times writer Joseph Giovanni said the building resembles a “Cubist sailboat.” as-his-vuitton-foundation-opens.html?ref=design. According to the Times, at the October 20 opening ceremony French President François Hollande described it as a “cathedral of light” and a “miracle of intelligence, creativity and technology.”

The just-completed structure – its official name is the Louis Vuitton Foundation - houses the private collection of luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnaut, chief of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet-Hennessey), one of the world’s most celebrated art collectors. Arnault got the Ville de Paris’ accord to build the museum on government land (on the site of a former bowling alley in the Jardin d’Acclimation, created by the city in the 19th century as a children’s park). In return the building will be deeded to the city in 50 years. The museum will give public access to one of the greatest private collections on the globe – a good deal for a city whose economy thrives on tourism.

The Picasso Museum is situated in the Marais quartier of Paris at 5, rue de Thorigny (3rd arr., Métro), tel. +33 (0)1 85 56 00 36. It is closed Saturday through Monday. You will find practical information at http://www.museepicassoparis.fr/en/contacts-map/

The Luis Vuitton Foundation is in the Bois de Boulogne (16th arr.) at 8, avenue de la Mahatma Gandhi, tel. +33-1-40.69.96.00. It is open every day except Tuesday. For information on transportation and parking see http://www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr/Informations-pratiques.html.