How does one entertain in style? The regretted Pierre Celeyron was a genius at giving you personalized decors for your balls, weddings and birthday parties. He used to work with three good fairies, Isabelle Baer, Fabienne de Sèze and Guendalina Litta. Two of them have kept going, organizing week long events like Vanisha Mittal’s Indian wedding in Versailles and Vaux le … Read More
Claude Perdriel, a very serious lover… of life
« Why would you want to write about Claude Perdriel ? », asked famous writer and journalist Jean Daniel, « because his life is a novel » replied biographer Marie- Dominique Lelièvre. And this is exactly what I felt like while reading this fun and lively biography of one of France’s most brilliant contemporary press entrepreneur.
A crazy week in Paris
How do you make an 18 th century building look like a contemporary one ? Ask Daniel Buren to disguise it with light and this is how Aveline, the antique store created by Jean-Marie Rossi, place Beauvau next to the Ministry of Interior, has become one of the most attractive sights at night in Paris (until Dec. 1). Something to … Read More
Five days in New York
I did not understand why there were so many police cars arresting people on the way back from Newark airport where my Openskies perfect flight had landed. Traffic was unbearable on Sunday night and there could not have been any speeding ! Only the next day, did I read in the New York Times, that the New Jersey bomber had been … Read More
A first book of the Rentrée
As the French come back from vacation, a fascinating novel, “La Chute d’Icare”, by 26 year old Jean François Roseau, about a Corsican aviator during the Second World War, is bound to be the talk of the town for the Rentrée littéraire. It is published by Bernard de Fallois, who surprised everyone four years ago with the huge best seller, … Read More
Pierre Antoine Bernheim remembered
Pierre-Antoine Bernheim wrote many books including « Paradis Paradis » paradise as described in different religions with Guy Stavridès and “James, Brother of Christ ». He was interested in the history of religions and after he died prematurely in 2011, his mother Francine created the literary Prize for History of religions, he had planned to give to Académie des Inscriptions et Belles … Read More
Daniel Templon turns 50
To celebrate his fifty years as an art dealer, French galerist Daniel Templon, commissioned a book on his professional life by Sorbonne Professor Julie Verlaine. It is a history of the last fifty years of contemporary art and a page turner about a little man from the suburbs, who became very big through his passion for art and his love of … Read More
My Battle of Algiers by Ted Morgan
He was called Sanche de Gramont then and was enrolled as a Frenchman in the army. But having been raised in New York, trained at Yale College and at Columbia school of journalism, he felt quite unconcerned by the French Algerian independence war of 1956 -1957.