A few hundred members of “Les Amis du Louvre” were brave enough to walk through Paris in the middle of the strike, to honor the invitation, last Tuesday night when the museum was closed, to a private visit of the new “Salle des Etats” where Mona Lisa is exhibited. The huge room, painted in a combination of midnight blue and … Read More
MAD at its best !
If you don’t want to queue at the Louvre during this holiday season, try MAD, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, around the corner, which has four interesting exhibitions at the moment, including one on their very special benefactor, Marchesa Arconati Visconti (1840-1923), who inherited a large fortune from her Italian husband when he died, in 1876, of typhoid fever. She bequeathed … Read More
Christian de Portzamparc is a painter at Kamel Mennour
If you have a passion, like I do, for Pritzker Prize laureate Christian de Portzamparc, you will be curious to discover his new ink and acrylic paintings at Galerie Kamel Mennour rue Saint André des Arts. They are very architectural of course, with a strong sense of space and geometry, and a very special light which illuminates dust, gaz particules … Read More
Nils-Udo, from Bavaria to rue Récamier
It’s always moving to meet an artist you’ve admired for many years and my encounter with Nils-Udo and his wife Lisa, at Fondation EDF, started with our exchanging recollections of Prien am Chiemsee, a small village where I studied German some twenty years ago and near where he lives. He was raised in the North of the region, in Schloss … Read More
Toulouse Lautrec also loves men at Grand Palais
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec was born in 1864 in an aristocratic family and spent his first years with his mother near Narbonne and in the Rouergue. They moved to Paris when he was 8 and he attended the future Lycée Condorcet, the same as Proust’s. His health was unsteady for he had inherited a genetic disorder similar to osteoporosis and … Read More
Antony Gormley and Lucian Freud, a double bill at the Royal Academy
Every time I travel to London, I try to have the same routine. From King’s Cross, I take the tube to Piccadilly, visit Hatchards book store, have lunch at Fortnum’s and visit the Royal Academy of Arts. And this time was particularly successful, for there were two admirable exhibitions: “Lucian Freud, The Self- portraits” (until January 26) and “Antony Gormley” … Read More
Joy de Rohan Chabot is back with her treasures
Joy de Rohan Chabot never stops surprising us. She was probably the most beautiful débutante of her generation and her Scottish blood always attracted her to nature. You might remember her spectacular show at Musée Jacquemart André in 2008 or her first one at Tiffany’s, in New York, in 1987? Her bronze creations are all melted by David de Gourcuff in … Read More
Striking Iron in Africa, a delicate art
There are two excellent exhibitions opening at Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, “Helena Rubinstein’s African art collection” and “Striking Iron, the Art of African blacksmiths”, but I have to admit, my weakness for the latter, which is a huge surprise and aesthetical shock. It was conceived by the Fowler museum at UCLA, which is a scientific partner of the museum … Read More