Avenue Matignon continues its fast ascension in becoming the modern and contemporary art destination for all the collectors who can’t be bothered to get stuck in traffic on their way to the Marais. And the White Cube gallery, which is discreetly housed on the second floor of an Hausmannian building at n°10, is showing a completely unknown-to-the French American artist, … Read More
Karl Lagerfeld again! but by a master biographer…
There is something magical about a biography written in a firm style and meticulously researched. There are so many bad books published at the moment, like the completely superficial text on Carlos de Beistegui, that William Middleton’s “Paradise Now, the extraordinary life of Karl Lagerfeld” is a miraculous treasure. The author, whom I discovered with “Double Vision“, an extensive study of … Read More
Léopold Sédar Senghor, an African ruler who loved the arts
Before being elected the first President of the Republic of Senegal in 1960, Léopold Sédar Senghor, 1906-2001, had been twice minister in the French Government, under Edgar Faure and Michel Debré. He was the first African to become Agrégé de grammaire in 1935 and the first African to enter the Académie Française. He is remembered as the founder of the … Read More
Fernande Olivier is a precious informer at Musée de Montmartre
She lived for eight years with Pablo Picasso from 1904 to 1912, in Montmartre and in Spain, but she was not just a pretty girl. She could paint and she could write. The exhibition at Musée de Montmartre (until February 19) is a revelation on Fernande Olivier‘s life. Not from a feminist’s point of view, but as a source of … Read More
The Proustmania is ending, Thank God
Before the ultimate Proust celebration of the year at the Travellers’ club, a fancy dinner party which will take place on November 28, for “Les Amis de Marcel Proust”, the exhibition at BnF , the French National library, “Marcel Proust, La Fabrique de l’Oeuvre” (The making of the work), is really dedicated to bibliophiles and Proust maniacs. Organized by Antoine … Read More
The new Sciences Pô gardens, Anri Sala at Bourse du Commerce and Tamara Rojo at TCE
For those of you who are not familiar with Sciences Pô, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques which has formed most politicians, high level civil servants and diplomats in France, it used to be based on rue Saint Guillaume in Saint Germain des Près. In the last twenty years it has become very international and spread out in the whole area of … Read More
Bibliothèque Richelieu reopens with Palm trees
The main entrance of the Bibliothèque Nationale Richelieu (French public library) is now on rue Vivienne, facing Le Grand Colbert restaurant. And a large garden “Hortus Papyrifera” with palm trees and many “paper trees”, created by Gilles Clément, welcomes you instead of the more austere courtyard of rue de Richelieu. Once you walk inside, a modern staircase in aluminum and … Read More
A 90 th birthday, a French wedding, family life in the countryside
The birthday cake was a pile of her books, 49 to this day, and she is writing the fiftieth. The guests were strictly family, her six children, grandchildren and great grand children with a few siblings and very intimate friends such as playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard. Lady Antonia Fraser, whose second husband of twenty eight years, Harold Pinter, died … Read More