The decor at Mon Square is brilliant and happy
Since no-one stays in Paris in the summer, it was tempting to try the very busy restaurants that all my friends tell me about, which are constantly fully booked. I started with “Girafe” in the Trocadero, which has a splendid view over the Eiffel Tower and then had lunch at “Mon Square“, a new very pretty place in front of Sainte Clotilde church. Both are ridiculously expensive and very pretty. What a dilemma!Read More
Françoise Toulouse, “L’amer du marin”, 2019
Ile de Ré, an island off la Rochelle which has become a very posh holiday destination, was for an evening, the rendez vous of many Parisian art lovers. 28 artists who have a special relationship to the place, gave a painting or a drawing for the restoration of the church of Saint Etienne d’Ars en Ré. The particularity of its 40 m high spire is that it is partly in tar, partly painted with chalk. This grey and white contrast makes it a symbol of the island as eloquent as the Eiffel tower in Paris and it can be seen by sailors from 20 kms afar, even in the fog. Read More
A very cool bag for the summer
Paris is wonderful in August because you park everywhere and everyone is smiling at you. Except when you look for a post office, like I did this morning, and you realize they are all closed until 1pm!!! While walking on rue des Archives, I ran into a wonderful store, La Garçonnière, at the corner of rue Braque where Thérèse Delpech, our wonderful friend used to live. I had never stepped into this concept store before, because it is mostly dedicated to men’s accessories, a barber shop and a little fashion. But Inès Olaechea has created a pop up store for the summer and sells her wonderful Colombian baskets and jewelry by Mercedes Salazar from her shop 85° Paris (on 38 rue de l’Université). If you need a last minute present for your free holidays at a friend’s house, go there, you ‘ll find everything you need!Read More
Catherine Grenier, Président of the Institute in front of “Head and Nude”, 1964, from the Kunsthaus in Zürich
A year ago, Institut Giacometti was opened in a delightful studio overlooking Cimetière Montparnasse. After four exhibitions based on Fondation Giacometti’s precious collections, the place is thriving as a small charming museum. Catherine Grenier and Michèle Kieffer, curators of the show “Narrating the body”, have researched the artists’ relation to the woman body. And his early drawings at Académie de La Grande Chaumière are very moving.Read More
Red and white cotton bodysuit
Since he abruptly died in 2017, Azzedine Alaïa has been remembered vividly thanks to his exhibition space on rue de la Verrerie in the Marais. The fourth celebratory exhibition curated by Olivier Saillard, “The Tati collection”, is an amazing testimony to the couturier’s talent. With a simple cotton cloth he managed to design couture clothes. The red, blue and black outfits are stunning and three large paintings by Julian Schnabel are perfect captions to the show.Read More
Fabrice Hyber, La Source, 2019
Don’t expect an art exhibition on the theme of trees, “Nous les arbres”, (We the trees) is a scientific and political diatribe for saving trees, essentially in Latin America. The oldest fossils of a forest date back to 385 million years while man appeared only 300 000 years ago. The fight between man and trees is shown through our admiration for this unique live body. One of the great moments of the show is the series of interviews of tree lovers in a film by Raymond Depardon as well as botanist Francis Hallé‘s extraordinary drawings.
In England (Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight), 1875, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis and Annie Rouart Foundation, © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris / The Bridgeman Art Library
Berthe Morisot, the French lady impressionist painter, had never had a retrospective at Musée d’Orsay since it opened in 1986 and her last exhibition was in 1941 at the Orangerie. After studying painting as an amateur and learning “plein air” painting with Jean-Baptiste Corot at 19, she decided to make a career of it and showed at the Salon for the first time in 1864: she was 23. When Edouard Manet meets her, he paints twelve portraits of her. She then marries his brother Eugène, a lesser painter, in 1875, and goes on a honeymoon on the Isle of Wight where she portrays her husband. She died very young at 54, leaving behind over four hundred paintings, mostly portraits or figures. Through this exhibition one discovers how modern her lifestyle and her painting was.Read More
One of four bas reliefs illustrating Buddha’s anterior lives, China, Shankhacharya Avadana, 6-7 th century.
Musée Guimet is one of the most fascinating museums in Paris and its collections all dedicated to Asian art are among the most complete in the world. This summer it presents three very different shows which all are attractive. “Buddha, the golden legend” as seen in Afghanistan, China, Burma, Japan… is curated by Thierry Zéphir. “On the Tokaido road”, a series of “touristic” Edo period prints and more contemporary, the top floor rotunda painted by Japanese artist Mr. in collaboration with Pharrell Williams on the theme of children. A perfect summer program!Read More