“Vegetal” and Chaumet at the Beaux Arts, Exceptional!

parisdiaArt, Flowers and gardens, Happy moments3 Comments

François-Renault Nitot for Chaumet, oak leaf parure with cornaline installes, 1809

This week, at every dinner party, only one word was been mentioned “Vegetal” (botanical): the title of the new fantastic exhibition based on plants’ designs in Chaumet’s jewelry, where one almost regrets that there is not more jewelry. Contemporary artists and classical painters have been united by curator and botanist Marc Jeanson to fill two floors of celebration of nature at Ecole des Beaux Arts. The decor is as luxurious as a shop on Place Vendôme and the mix of art which includes a Saint Laurent embroidered wool crêpe jacket and Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs, but also medieval tapestries and Arcimboldo’s paintings from the Louvre is stunning. Since the Van Cleef exhibition of gems at Museum d’Histoire naturelle last year, Parisians have been alerted to the strong link between the earth and precious stones.  This time we are learning about Joseph Chaumet‘s passion for botanic and the deep ties between nature and artists since the creation of the house in 1780 by Marie-Etienne Nitot and his follower’s Jean Baptiste Fossin‘s perfect drawings. Read More

Gulbenkian meets Al Thani and Vermeulen enters Studio Harcourt

parisdiaArt, Fashion, Happy moments, Non classé, Photography1 Comment

Julien Vermeulen, portrait © Antoine Lippens

There are some wonderful artists/artisans around and Maison Parisienne specializes in original creators. One of them, the plumassier (feather magician) Julien Vermeulen, works with feathers and started in fashion before becoming a full time artist. He is being shown at Studio Harcourt, the very pretty studio and gallery of black and white photography in the 16 th arrondissement, from June 23 to July 23. At Hôtel de la Marine, the Al Thani collection is presenting a few exceptional pieces from the Calouste Gulbenkian collection as part of the Portuguese season in Paris. Read More

Carolyn Carlson enters the Académie des Beaux Arts and Michel David-Weill leaves us

parisdiaPerforming artsLeave a Comment

Carolyn Carlson playing with her new sword created by Gilles Nicolas

Like Bianca Li  and Thierry Malandain, Carolyn Carlson is one of the choreographers and dancers who were installed at the Académie des Beaux Arts, a new category created besides the traditional movie, printing, architecture, painting, divisions… The Oakland, CA, born and French naturalized (in 2019) Carlson, had Finnish origins. She was extremely entertaining during her acceptance speech and yet not as witty as Laurent Petitgirard, the music composer and conductor,  who welcomed her saying that he had been picked because his accent in English was as offensive as hers in French. And he offered her a piggy bank where she would be forced to put 1 € every time she pronounces a word in English during the sessions of the Académie.Read More

Writing can help you, “The benefits of words” by Nayla Chidiac

parisdiaBooks5 Comments

The author Nayla Chidiac

Nayla Chidiac has a PHD in Psychopathology and for thirteen years, she had a consultation on post traumatic psychology at Sainte Anne psychiatric hospital in Paris. When she applied for a job there in 1997, she was asked to find an idea and founded therapeutical writing workshops at Sainte Anne psychiatric hospital in Paris in the service which already included musicotherapy and visual arts. This has led her to publish many research articles on the topic of “The benefits of writing and the benefits of words”, the title of her latest book published by Odile Jacob, the greatest scientific publisher in France. She will sign her book at Librairie Gallimard on Wednesday, June 22 at 7 pm.Read More

A garden festival at the Tuileries and roses are celebrated in Chaalis

parisdiaFlowers and gardensLeave a Comment

The lavender field in the Tuileries by the Concorde entrance

Salon Jardins, Jardin, at the Tuileries started under the rain but everyone was so happy that it took place at all after two years of interruption, that the atmosphere was very cheerful. There I ran into garden lovers from Fontaine Chaalis where the Journées de la Rose were taking place this week end and enjoyed the news that Jardins & Santé won a prize for their therapeutic gardens in hospitals. With the French Federation, Nature & Santé, run by Nicole Bres, more and more ecotherapies and hortitherapies are organized to help hospital patients with the contact of plants. And at Abbaye de Chaalis, a new route of antique roses has been planted besides the fabulous rose garden created a hundred years ago by Nelly Jacquemart André. The rose festival received more than 13 300 visitors!Read More

At Musée du Quai Branly, clubs are true sculptures

parisdiaArt, Non classéLeave a Comment

Siriti, club for two hands, Fidji Islands, 18 th -19 th century, the Trustees of the British Museum acquired from the merchant, William Cutter © musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, photo Hughes Dubois

This new exhibition “Power and Prestige, the Art of clubs in the Pacific ” comes from one man, Steven Hooper, a Cambridge graduate, who since 1977, is a specialist of Oceanian arts and catalogued his grandfather’s James Hooper‘s collection of clubs (massues in French) in the 1970’s. Unlike his grandfather who collected but never travelled, he spent extensive lengths of time in the Fidji islands and elsewhere in the Pacific which he considers the most varied zone in the world. He is now curator at the Sainsbury research Unit of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia. He has also published  the “Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection” in three volumes in 1997. The co-curator of the show Stéphanie Leclerc-Caffarel was one of his students at East Anglia. She is now in charge of Oceanian collections at the museum. The collection was presented in Venice by Fondazione Giancarlo Ligabue at Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, last winter and the British museum lent 26 pieces. This is the first large show dedicated to clubs from the Pacific. Read More

At Christie’s and at Galerie Kugel, Hubert de Givenchy’s taste is revived.

parisdiaArt, Auction, Books, Furniture2 Comments

Joan Miro, The Passage of the migrating bird, its 2.500 000 to 3.500 000€ with Alberto Giacometti” Walking woman (estimate on request)

It took a whole year for the French and International teams of Christie’s to organize this “house” sale of Hubert de Givenchy‘s two properties: his apartment in the Hôtel inhabited by the Bemberg on rue de Grenelle, and his country house of Manoir du Jonchet. Bedrooms, gardens, a few salons have been reinvented on avenue Matignon and the privileged visitors of the exhibition’s preview  were raving about the decor and the lavishness of the scenography. Indeed it was probably the most social event of the week and let’s hope that the sale will be the greatest financial success. I noticed a few things I would love to acquire like a Diego Giacometti console and a large Hubert Robert “Landscape with an obelisk and a colonnade”. Green velvet sofas, Napoleon III armchairs, are numerous but what is fascinating is the number of 55 reading lamps (1 000€) by Maison Meilleur and 66 photophores, being sold. Givenchy must have been a very pragmatic man.Read More

At La Compagnie, great food but overpriced

parisdiaRestaurants & HotelsLeave a Comment

La Compagnie on 123 avenue de Wagram near rue de Courcelles

I happen to know one of the young waitresses well so I was curious to see where she worked. And it was a very nice surprise to have lunch at La Compagnie, a modern style brasserie, whose owner used to work for the Costes brothers. The decor is fun and unpretentious, the service is great and kind, the food homemade and excellent but for lunch the bill at 59 € was totally overpriced… Dinner might be a better idea if you are in the XVII th area.Read More