Musée André Malraux in Le Havre is a little glass jewel inaugurated in 1961, overlooking the beach which was still crowded two weeks ago. Temperatures of 25° allowed brave swimmers to enjoy the (quite) warm water of the great tides. The exhibition, “Nuits électriques” (electrical nights), is part of Normandy Impressionniste 2020, a large festival celebrating Impressionist painters, which covers … Read More
Museum of Modern art celebrates Victor Brauner, Sarah Moon and Hubert Duprat
I had been waiting for these three exhibitions since April when they were due to open and strangely enough, between Sarah Moon and Victor Brauner, it is the third name, Hubert Duprat, a French contemporary self taught artist, who interested me the most. Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris certainly has a whole day to offer the visitor … Read More
Man Ray and Fashion, at Musée du Luxembourg
It is not so easy to put on an exhibition of Man Ray, with only his fashion photographs, and I am not sure that the pink and celadon colors of the rooms at Musée du Luxembourg help much. Yet, fashion photography is an interesting phenomenon which started with Paul Poiret in 1911, Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli in the 1920’s. … Read More
In Compiègne, Eugénie is the topic of a new book and a costume show
Château de Compiègne is a sleeping beauty which is slowly being awakened by the senior curator Rodolphe Rapetti and at the moment, a modest exhibition of costumes worn by Empress Eugénie, Napoléon III’s wife, is matched by a brilliant book written by Laure Chabanne with photographs by Gustave Le Gray, paintings and watercolors by Eugène Lami, and numerous artifacts which give … Read More
Josef Koudelka is magic at BNF
It’s rare to enter an exhibition of photographs and to be mesmerized. Of course, you rarely have the conjunction of an amazing space, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France with its huge heights, a brilliant photographer Josef Koudelka, and a team of scenographers (Jasmin Oezcebi), researchers, curators as high in quality. This show “RUINS” of 110 panoramic prints (124 cm X … Read More
At MahJ, berber jewelry is worn by Moroccan Jews
It all started with Hannah Assouline‘s passion for history and when she found a picture of her father’s as a young groom, shot by Jean Besancenot in 1935 in Southern Morocco, this woman who is herself a photographer, decided to research more about the Jewish community in Morocco. Photographer Jean Besancenot (1902-1992) spent his life documenting costumes and jewelry in … Read More
Frank Horvat makes a glamorous comeback at Galerie Lelong
I met Frank Horvat at Vogue Hommes in the 1980’s when he started diversifying from fashion photography and photojournalism to many other topics and I saw him again when he shooting the collection of costumes of Palais Galliera in the 1990’s. He is the most generous and charming photographer you can meet. The 1980’s are exactly the period when he … Read More
Charles Xelot photographs “gas under the tundra”
It took three polar winters to shoot this series of photographs in the Peninsula of Yamal in the Russian Arctic, where natural gas is being produced and French photographer Charles Xelot is the living witness of the transformation of wild tundra inhabited by the Nenets into fields of pipelines. The sea coast is now illuminated by the lights of oil … Read More