Hotel de Gallifet (Gallifet Hotel), Aix-en-Provence

Hôtel de Gallifet (Gallifet Hotel) is an 18th-century Hôtel Particulier located in the Quartier Mazarin of Aix-en-Provence in France. Today, it serves as a contemporary art center for the public.

Hôtel de Gallifet was built in the early 18th century by Jean-Leon Leotard, the Lord of Entrages. Léotard bestowed the building onto the House of Gallifet, a noble family originating from the Dauphin region of the South of France, as part of a marriage agreement for his daughter Madeleine de Léotard d’Entrages to Simon Alexandre Jean de Galliffet, seigneur du Tholonet from 1716-1793. He was head of the eldest branch of the Gallifet family in the 16th century, the king's advisor and Treasurer of the cardinals of Bourbon.

The couple had one child in 1748, named Louis François Alexandre, Prince de Martigues de Galliffet, Comte de Galliffet. The building was later owned by General and Marquis Gaston-Alexandre-August, Prince of Martigues, a French military man born in Paris in 1830. He was Minister of War under the government of Waldeck-Rousseau.

In the mid nineteenth century, the Hôtel de Gallifet was the residence of the Jewish Crémieux family. During the Second World War, the building was occupied by German officers. The members of the Crémieux family who lived in Hôtel de Gallifet at the time were obliged to flee, but were saved from deportation along with the other Jewish families of Aix-en-Provence, because they were specially protected Jews of the Pope.

Later the Hôtel de Gallifet came under the ownership of Nicolas Mazet, and in 2010 he opened it as a workspace for contemporary artists of Aix-en-Provence. The ground floor of Hôtel de Gallifet became an art center for cultural and artistic exchange. It is one of the largest of several Hotel Particuliers of the Quartier Mazarin which have been opened to the public as art centers and museums, each focusing on a specific aspect of art and culture.

Throughout the year Hôtel de Gallifet hosts exhibitions by both established and emerging contemporary artists. Works by Carl André, Francois Arnal, Diadji Diop, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, and Huang Yong Ping were displayed over the during five years in personal shows, group shows, as well as shows built around private collections. Since 2013, conferences, concerts, and workshops have also been regularly organized.

In the courtyard, an installation entitled "Nager dans le Bonheur]," by Senegalese artist Diadji Diop] features a sculpture of a red man giving the illusion of swimming through the gravel of the courtyard. The courtyard additionally has original graffiti by artist Miss.Tic