Alexandra Lapierre’s new novel on Belle Greene, the creator of the Morgan Library, is fascinating

There are many great projects for 2021 which we should all look forward to. Alexandra Lapierre, author of  many biographies such as “Moura” and “Artemisia Gentileschi”, is publishing on January 20, a 500 page novel on “Belle Greene”, the brilliant creator of the collections of the Morgan Library who hid all her life that she was a Metis. Avenue Matignon is becoming the epicenter of artistic life on the right bank with Emmanuel Perrotin investing a five story building at n°2 bis, with two partners, Tom-David Bastok and Dylan Lessel. They will develop a gallery for second market paintings. Almine Rech is opening a new space with a Kenny Scharf show, at n°18  on January 21. And Sotheby’s will be moving to the historical Bernheim Jeune gallery, at n°27, on the corner of Matignon and Faubourg St Honoré, which premises Patrick Drahi, president of Altice, has bought last summer. But the 17 th of February sale of Christo and Jeanne Claude’s personal collection will still be at galerie Charpentier and online. And Christie’s has opened up a gallery with a window on rue de Ponthieu, showing samples of future sales. 

Paul Signac is having a show of 25 paintings at Musée Jacquemart André on March 5

We are celebrating the 200 th anniversary of Gustave Flaubert‘s birth in Normandy and the 40 th anniversary of Jack Lang’s law, fixing the price of books in France, which saved many authors and bookstores. 50 years ago, Coco Chanel died and it is time to read Jean Lebrun’s excellent book “Notre Chanel“, a portrait of the fashion designer through all the houses she lived in.

Auguste Rodin, in the Rodin Picasso exhibition on February 9, © musée Rodin – photo Hervé Lewandowski

Roger Viollet has now opened its 150 years of photographic archives on the net and you can order prints of historical events or any mythical travels in all countries in the world for under 500 €. If everything goes well, a Rodin Picasso show will open at Musée Rodin on February 9 for a whole year, and two major exhibitions will open in March: “Colored Harmonies” a private collection of paintings by Paul Signac, Seurat, Pissarro on March 5, at Musée Jacquemart André,  and two hundred works by Giovanni Boldini, at Petit Palais on the 30 th. Born in Ferrara, in 1842, Boldini spent most of his life in Paris and was hugely successful among a society of rich international clients. There have been many exhibitions in Italy but none in France since 1963.

Giovanni Boldini, Lady in pink, Olivia Concha de Fontecilla, 1916, Museo Giovanni Boldini, Ferrara

On February 9, the rare pianist Alain Planès is scheduled to play in Galerie des Rubens at the Louvre for the Cercle des Mécènes. This new group of benefactors created by The Friends of the Louvre (60 000 members) and managed by Sébastien Fumaroli, will have special privileges, invitations to private openings and a card to enter Musée d’Orsay. Joining costs 4 000€, but you get a 3 700€ tax deduction if you pay your taxes in France.

Louis Antoine Prat President of Les Amis du Louvre

The first exhibition of the year at Galerie Maria Lund will be centered on indigo blue , “bla bla blue”, the meeting of two Danish artists, painter Peter Martensen and poet Morten Søndergaard on January 21.

MORTEN SØNDERGAARD | the pharmacy of words,
blue box containing 10 boxes of words, 2014-2020

At the V&A in London a large exhibition of “Epic Iran“, on 5 000 years of Iranian art, design and culture  is opening  on February 12. It is the first exhibition in 90 years on this historical civilization and it will include contemporary Iranian art.

Armlet, 500-330 BC, from the Oxus Treasure © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun is publishing a new book with Gallimard,  “Le miel et l’Amertume” (Honey and Bitterness), set in Tangiers and at Institut du Monde Arabe, a very promising show starting on January 27, will link Egyptian and Lebanese singers Umm Kulthum, Fayruz and Dalida in a large fresco of music and cinema set in the Arab world from Beyrouth to Cairo.

Normandy is celebrating Flaubert all year long for its 200 th anniversary.

Following in Emma Bovary’s steps, a number of small towns and larger museums will celebrate naughty Gustave Flaubert through photographs, literary festivals and secret gardens in Seine Maritime, the department where the writer was born two hundred years ago on December 12.

And soon maybe we will be able to go back to café de Flore for a Welsh rarebit or to Clarence for a festive dinner… Remember that all private galleries are open in Paris and they are free… More next week!