Joël Dicker flies very high in sales

Joël Dicker presenting his book and his film projects at the Swiss Embassy in Paris

It was a lovely literary evening at the Swiss embassy in Paris where Ambassador Bernardino Regazzoni and his delightful wife were hosting Swiss writer Joël Dicker to celebrate his fourth best seller “La disparition de Stéphanie Mailer” which sold 48 000 copies in its first six days. The dashing writer who was discovered by publisher Bernard de Fallois, gave a wonderful presentation and described extensively his writing technique under the attentive ear of Michel Zink, the newly elected academician and Medievist. Read More

Delacroix can still surprise us at the Louvre

“Greece standing on the ruins of Missolonghi”, 1826. © Musée des Beaux- Arts de Bordeaux. Photo L. Gauthier, F. Deval

I am always reticent to tell you about exhibitions that have been widely reviewed by famous art critics but, this time, the Delacroix show at the Louvre is just too exciting to be missed. The 180 paintings were selected over a forty two year career of one of the most revered French painter of the 19 th century. The show will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of art on September 17 th.Read More

A summer festival of opera at Baugé

Karlene Moreno Hayworth in Madame Butterfly, photo Alexis Hayworth

Priscilla de Moustier has a beautiful salon in the Faubourg Saint Germain and she is generous enough to let young musicians use it. It was a lovely evening that she organized to announce this year’s festival of opera in Baugé, between Le Mans and Saumur, where a couple of Brits have created sixteen years ago, in their garden, a festival on the model of Garsington. I have not been yet but judging from the exceptional young talents I heard that evening in Paris, the experience should be great fun. For the first time, Ecole Normale de Musique is involved with their two new laureates, soprano Masayo Tago and counter tenor Théo Imart.Read More

“Wild souls” or symbolism in the Baltics

Aleksandrs Romans, Landscape with rider, 1910, Riga, National Museum of Latvia ©  Normunds Brasliņš

It is rare to walk into an exhibition in a famous museum like Musée d’Orsay and see 130 works whose authors you have never heard of before. This is the miracle of the show, “Wild souls, symbolism in the Baltic States”, which was inaugurated last week by President Emmanuel Macron and the heads of states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It is part of the celebrations of the 100 th anniversary of their independence. Read More

Stéphane Erouane Dumas, charm at its best

Little banquise, 2017

On Thursday April 12 th, Stéphane Erouane Dumas celebrated his sixtieth birthday with a beautiful opening at galerie Pierre-Alain Challier, rue Debelleyme. This discreet French artist, who studied at Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, has devoted his life to painting trees and cliffs. The cliffs are in Varangeville, one of the most dramatic countrysides of Normandy, where he lives and works  and his trees come from everywhere, but in this specific show they are mostly birches from Northern countries. The music and poetry of the paintings are incomparable and somewhat reminiscent of Vilhelms Purvitis, the Latvian painter shown at Musée d’Orsay.Read More

Subodh Gupta, from Indian daily life to grand art

A banyan tree in the courtyard of La Monnaie de Paris, “People tree”, 2018

What I love about Subodh Gupta’s exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris, is that he is obsessed with daily life and food. « Adda » (exchanges in hindi) is the first retrospective in France of this New Delhi based artist, who trained as a painter and now explores video, electricity installations and cooking instruments, with a great sense of humour and talent. The Louis XV th majestuous frame of La Monnaie de Paris, where official medals are still minted today, is in perfect adequation with his vernacular art and the thirty works shown here. He has also designed a medal.Read More

Giuseppe Ducrot, an Italian talent at Pierre Passebon

A garden bench in yellow and manganese ceramics sells for 85 000€

His great grandfather, Vittorio Ducrot was a foremost art nouveau furniture designer in Palermo. His mother is a forceful painter and textile designer, his grand father was an engineer and he used to play around in his workshop when he was little. But Giuseppe Ducrot has definitely found his own artistic track and the ceramics he exhibits at Galerie du Passage, show an extraordinary classicist’s culture and great modernity. It is one of the most original private show in Paris at the moment.Read More

Tapestries, true witnesses of their times

Paul Charlemagne, To the Glory of Maréchal Pétain, 1942-1943, Aubusson

The new exhibition “Au fil du Siècle” at Manufacture des Gobelins is devoted to chefs d’oeuvres of the 20 th century and it is a firework of colors and political themes. Conceived in four months and inaugurated by Brigitte Macron and Stéphane Bern, it comprises the best pieces of tapestries owned by the Mobilier National. Furniture and carpets, from 1918 and the celebration of the victory, up to 2018 and the inclusion of plastic in the weaving. The mixture of nationalism and art, of modernity and color have never been so perfectly shown in wool. From José Maria Sert to Matisse and Zao Wou Ki, the exhibition shows the fascination that painters have for the art of  tapestry.Read More