Calder-Picasso, what a fascinating conversation!

Pablo Picasso, Figure (Project for a monument to Guillaume Apollinaire), Paris, Fall 1928, Iron wire and metal sheet, Musée national Picasso-Paris,Dation of the Estate of the Artist, 1979 © Succession Picasso 2019

There are moments in life when you feel blessed by God and visiting the dazzling Calder-Picasso exhibition at Musée Picasso yesterday, in the full midday sun, was one of these. The 120 sculptures and paintings by the two masters, who met only four times in the course of their lives, are whimsical and aerial, strong and dark at times, and the lay out of the superb 17 th century Hotel Salé gives it a very special chic. Do not miss the show!Read More

“Tissage, tressage” is the new art!

Joana Vasconcelos, Robinette, 2013

Danièle Kapel-Marcovici is a character. She transformed her mother’s modest company of cartonage Raja,  into the largest European wrapping company in thirty years and has now developed two major foundations. One Fondation Raja for women’s rights et education and another, in Lubéron, called Fondation Villa Datris. Her mother’s workshops in Paris’ 20 th arrondissement have recently opened as the Parisian antenna of Villa Datris. Tissage Tressage, includes 28 artists who use threads as a their main medium. From Annette Messager to Sheila Hicks, Marinette Cueco and Joanan Vasconcelos. The space is superb and entrance is free.Read More

Paul Sérusier, a Nabis magician at Orsay

Paul Sérusier, “Portrait of Paul Ranson in nabi costume”, 1890, © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay), Hervé Lewandowski

With a small painting called “Le Talisman”, made in the open air in Pont Aven in 1888, Paul Sérusier immediately became the founder of the Nabis (prophet in Hebrew) movement. A disciple of Gauguin, he brought with his abstract painting, a new influence to the young painters of Académie Julian in Paris. This Talisman will later belong to Maurice Denis, who made sure to keep it as a treasure. A beautiful exhibition at Musée d’Orsay  “Le Talisman”, tells the story of this group of adventurous young painters from the turn of the 20 th century.Read More

Tsuguharu Foujita is back in Paris after fifty years

Portrait of Suzy Solidor, 1927, Ville de Cagnes-sur-Mer, château-musée Grimaldi, donation Suzy Solidor, © Fondation Foujita / Adagp

During the 82 years of his life, Foujita (1886-1968),  travelled extensively and chose to live and die in France. He came as a young man in 1914, became almost immediately successful in Montparnasse in the “roaring twenties”, then left for Latin America and was back in Japan during the second world war. He returned to Paris in the late forties, totally disappointed by his country and the horrible war that he was forced to witness and paint. A short exhibition of 36 paintings tells this extraordinary life at Maison de la culture du Japon after Tokyo and Kyoto. And some of the paintings had never left Japan. Read More

A 25 year old French golfer wins the Australian LPGA

At 25, Céline Boutier wins her first LPGA tournament in Australia

For the first time since 2003, Céline Boutier of France has won a golf LPGA tour championship in Australia at Barwon Heads, south west of Melbourne. This is her first win on the Ladies Professional American circuit and she is now a Rolex first time winner. Beating two Australians with a score of 8 under, she succeeds Catherine Lacoste who won the US open as an amateur in 1967, Anne Marie Palli (twice a winner) and Patricia Meunier Lebouc.  Read More

Celebrate Valentine in style on Thursday the 14th!

From 7 pm to 10.30 pm, Musée Rodin will resonate with music and poetry

 

Valentine like New Year can be tricky to celebrate if you don’t particularly like candlelit dinners and cliché evenings. It was first established in the 14 th century as a day for courtly love by Geoffrey Chaucer, the well known British poet, author of the Canterbury Tales. This year, Musée Rodin is organizing a romantic night visit and following the steps of Camille Claudel and the genius sculptor Auguste Rodin, is a fun idea. There will be music and poetry, and weather permitting, walks in the beautiful garden of rue de Varenne.Read More

René Laubiès is remembered with two shows

Oil on paper marouflé on canvas, 1963

Two exhibitions are devoted to post war painter René Laubiès this month, one in Les Sables d’Olonne at Abbaye de Sainte Croix and the other in Paris at Alain Margaron’s gallery. Both show the light and serenity of the French painter, born in Saigon in 1922, who died in Mangalore in 2006. He painted mostly in Kerala at the end of his career and led a very ascetic life in a local hotel. To spend time with his paintings is a privilege. They are soothing and enlightening.Read More

At Fondation Custodia, 500 years of drawings from the Pushkin Museum

Caspar David Friedrich, Two men on the sea side, 1830-1835, Pushkin Museum of Art

Once again, Fondation Custodia is offering us an exceptional exhibition of rarely seen drawings. Taking advantage of the closing of the Pushkin Museum for renovations, Ger Luijten and Marina Lochak directors of Custodia and of the Pushkin museum have agreed to show these chefs d’oeuvres for the first time in Paris.  195 of the 27 000 drawings kept in the Russian museum’s collections are hanging at rue de Lille.  Drawn over a span of five centuries, these works by Albrecht Dürer, Carpaccio, Rembrandt, Poussin, Matisse and Picasso, show what fervent collectors the Russians were in the 19 th century and what a great eye, the initiator of the collection, Ivan Tsvetov, had in 1912 when he opened the drawing galleries.  It is a mind-blowing show with ancient drawings on the first floor and 20 th century in the basement. Read More