Discover famous and infamous Provence celebrity inhabitants
When you visit Arles today, you cannot avoid the references to the short time that the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh spent in this Provençal town. From every postcard stand and every t-shirt display the message is clear: Vincent was here!
Pierre Auguste Renoir was another of the great Masters who revelled in the glorious light and rustic scenes of the Cote d’Azur.
George Lucas was born in California and is best known for being the creator of the incredibly popular Indiana Jones and Star Wars film franchises.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the famous novel The Great Gatsby while living on the French Riviera, and when the film version premiered to a red carpet audience at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, the story had in some ways come back to its spiritual home.
Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekylland Hyde, wrote of his time on the French Riviera with nostalgia.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of Queen Victoria of England in the transformation of the French Riviera from sleepy rural backwater into a glittering playground for royals and celebrities.
Henri Matisse spent almost 40 years of his life in the French Riviera, enchanted by the quality of the light and the vivid colours that the light reflected. He lived in Nice for 27 years, and thereafter spent time in Eze, Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, Villefranche sur Mer, Beaulieu sur Mer and Cagnes sur Mer.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, one of the most famous couples in the world before their break-up, owned a 35 bedroom chateau-with moat-on a 1000 acre estate called Miraval, near Aix en Provence.
Jules Verne, adventure novelist and the ‘father of science fiction’, found writing inspiration surrounded by the pine trees and villas of Cap d’Antibes, that splendid headland with its crystal clear coves, pine trees and sweeping view of the Bay of the Angels across to the snow-capped Alps.
Aldous Huxley lived on the French Riviera for seven years, during which time he wrote the dystopian novel Brave New World that would entrench him as one of the greatest 20th century writers and intellectuals. He would also be part of an alleged plot to steal DH Lawrence’s ashes and scatter them to the desert winds, a story so wonderful that it should have really appeared in a novel.
Paul Cezanne is probably Provence's most famous artist. It is said that his works straddle the divide between Impressionism and Cubism. He was born into a bourgeois family - his father was a banker - in Aix en Provence on January 19th 1839 and grew up with his younger sister in the town. As a teenager he explored the surrounding countryside with his friends Emile Zola and Baptisin Baille, and began to paint at the local art school.
The famous novelist Somerset Maugham left England to find a place in the Mediterranean sun among the colony of artists, royals and celebrities living on the glamorous Cote d’Azur.
Graham Greene, one of the greatest voices of literature of the 20th century, lived in a humble one-bedroom apartment in Antibes for 24 years.
King Leopold II of Belgium is another person who was quick to see the astonishing virtues of the Coted’Azur- much like his English cousin Queen Victoria.
Bono, front man of U2 is a common sight on the French Riviera. Everyone who lives here seems to have seen him at some point- whether partying in a fashionable beach clubs in Saint Tropez, having a quiet drink in a bar in a bar in Antibes, or strolling along the beach of Eze-sur-Mer, the village where he has his mansion. He’s certainly not hard to spot, with those trademark clear glasses.