There have never been so many books coming out, all on fascinating topics, as if publishers were trying to catch up on lost times. Benedetta Craveri, who made a name to herself in the US in 1982 and in France with her book on “Madame du Deffand and her world”, is publishing at Flammarion a biography with a flashy title, … Read More
Giuseppe Penone brings trees to Bibliothèque Nationale
Walking into the main room of the exhibition, “Giuseppe Penone, Sève et Pensée” (Lymph and thought) at BnF is a moment of pure happiness and ecstasy. The show, curated by Marie Minssieux-Chamonard and Cécile Pocheau-Lesteven, focuses on links between man and nature and starts with early drawings and photographs from the 1970’s, continues with sculptures and ends with finger prints … Read More
Architect Bernard Desmoulin enters the Académie des Beaux arts
The name of Architects is often less known than their buildings and today at the Académie des Beaux Arts, both the newly installed candidate Bernard Desmoulin and the colleague who received him, Aymeric Zublena were unknown to me. Except that the latter is the author of Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou and of Stade de France in Saint Denis, two major … Read More
Céleste Albaret is decrypted minute by minute by Laure Hillerin
Laure Hillerin produced an extensive biography of Comtesse Greffulhe in 2014 and has furthered her knowledge (and ours) of Marcel Proust’s world with a new biography of Céleste Albaret, Proust’s gouvernante and caretaker for the last eight years of his life, between August 1914 and November 1922. Céleste was raised in Auzillac in the Massif Central, near Aubrac and the Cévennes, … Read More
A crazy rentrée but what fun!
It was a race this week if you wanted to see half of what took place in the capital. But with the magnificent weather and the use of subway and walking rather than taxiing, you could achieve a lot. After discovering the very pretty exhibition galleries at Christie’s with new windows on the street, I rushed to Galerie du Passage, … Read More
Philippe Apeloig, a graphist with many facets
As we learn that French American singer and dancer, Joséphine Baker, will enter the Panthéon on November 30 th for her actions in the Resistance, another event will put this former church, turned pantheon by the revolutionaries on April 4, 1791, on the map. On the nights of September 16-18, it will be illuminated with photographs of the dark commemorative … Read More
Uderzo had a life before Asterix
There is a great boom around “Asterix”, at the moment. New attractions and a new hotel at the theme park North of Paris, a new film of Asterix in China “l’Empire du Milieu”, directed by Guillaume Canet with Vincent Cassel and Marion Cotillard, to be launched in Spring 2022 and a beautiful exhibition at Musée Maillol, on rue de … Read More
Alfred de Montesquiou is back, with a novel set in Syria
War reporter Alfred de Montesquiou, studied journalism at Columbia University and worked for six years for AP in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. He then worked for Paris Match and won the coveted Prix Albert Londres for his coverage of the Lybian civil war. He published a first non fiction work, “Oumma“, on his travels through Arab land from … Read More