From the solemn morning ceremonies at a monument to World War I dead, to a sparkling evening in the ornate Salle des Fêtes at City Hall, the city of Reims went all out on Nov. 11, Armistice Day, to honor the Centenary of the American Memorial Hospital, a pediatric hospital founded in the ruined city in 1919 by a group … Read More
Football as a political tool at IMA
You all remember Invictus, the fabulous film directed by Clint Eastwood, which recounted Nelson Mandela’s success when South Africa won the Rugby World cup in 1995. Sport changes men’s attitudes and this is what Rachid Mekhloufi, star footballer who played with AS St Etienne tried to prove in 1958. He and Mustapha Zitouni left a successful career in France to … Read More
“The art market under the Occupation” at Mémorial de la Shoah
It is ironical that the remarkable exhibition on the collaboration between some French art experts and Nazi collectors “Le Marché de l’art sous l’occupation 1940-1944” opened the exact same day as the Bührle collection at Musée Maillol. German Swiss collector, Emil Bührle, typically profited from the extraordinary art market during the war at Hôtel Drouot and through private sales, and … Read More
In Meaux, the Great War becomes alive
Where else but in a museum celebrating the First World War and founded on 11/11/ 1211, should one go and learn about an event which shook Europe and the USA and turned the XX th century into a modern world on many levels? In Meaux, an hour east of Paris, le Musée de la Grande Guerre was built on one … Read More