Paris Diary by Laure

Valérie Maltaverne creates magic with design

parisdia25 February 2018Art, Furniture1 Comment

“Belle de Nuit” lamps exhibited at the Noguchi Museum, photo Ymer&Malta /Océane Delain

When you walk into Valérie Maltaverne’s showroom in the Batignolles area, you immediately know that you are entering a special world. That of perfect materials and craft. When she founded her company Ymer&Malta, she knew she wanted to create products with industrial designers and artisans. Nine years later, she partners with Tapisseries d’Aubusson on a few contemporary tapestries used with furniture. And she has achieved amazing wood marquetry tables. Her lamps are the object of an exhibition “Akari unfolded”at the Noguchi Museum in New York.Read More

Sheila Hicks sculpts with wool at Centre Pompidou

parisdia25 February 2018Art1 Comment

Lianes nantaises, detail, 1973

Sheila Hicks was born in Hasting, Nebraska, studied at Yale University with Josef Albers and spent years in Mexico where she collaborated with Luis Barragan and befriended Leonora Carrington. Her medium is wool and linen and she is showing over a hundred pieces at Centre Pompidou in the show called “Life lines”, until April 30.

Alicia Drake, the master painter of Parisian life

parisdia16 February 2018Books4 Comments

Alicia Drake signing her book at Hatchards, London, in February

You know Alicia Drake‘s name from her masterful book “The Beautiful Fall“, published in 2006, about the lives of Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. It stirred so much interest from both sides of the Atlantic that she barely had time to deliver her fifth child in the middle of the turmoil of the French translation (Ed Stock). Alicia is back with a fabulous novel “I love you too much“, the best frescoe of Parisian life I have ever read. She will be signing books at Shakespeare & Company on March 6. Read More

The Montmartre Museum glitters with Van Dongen

parisdia16 February 2018Art2 Comments

Kees van Dongen, Portrait of Madame de Plagny or Lady with a fan, 1920

No need to go to the gym this morning, visit the Montmartre museum instead and whether you arrive by tube or by foot, you will climb hundreds of steps to get to this charming, hidden museum which used to be Renoir’s studio, as well as Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice Utrillo’s. Until August 26, a special exhibition unveils “Van Dongen’s Bateau Lavoir” period. Born in Delfshaven in 1877, he became French in 1929 and died in Monaco in 1968. Read More

Beautiful architecture for watch straps!

parisdia16 February 2018Architecture, Fashion1 Comment

At Camille Fournet Paris, the “table of senses” is 9 m 20 long and fills a space of 93 m2, ©EricMartin

It is quite extraordinary to walk into a new boutique and find oneself immediately happy. This is what good architecture does to a space. And when I heard architect, Boris Cindric explain the mixture of materials he used for the Camille Fournet shop on rue Cambon, I started feeling even more interested. Read More

Pont Aven starts its new season with a private collection

parisdia16 February 2018Art1 Comment

Emile Jourdan, Entrance of the river, 1926

You have all heard of Ecole de Pont Aven, in Southern Brittany, where Paul Gauguin reigned over a colony of foreign and French painters in the 1880’s and 90’s. The little city has renovated its museum two years ago and the private collection of Alexandre Mouradian is being shown this year. The paintings are excellent and the visit will take you around one of France’s most beautiful seaside landscapes.

Corot focuses on ladies and monks at Musée Marmottan

parisdia12 February 2018Art6 Comments

You might be slightly bored by Jean Baptitse Corot‘s well known landscapes, by his rivers bordered with poplar trees in l’Oise and around Paris. But you will be utterly surprised by his paintings of naked women, of sexy models and charming nieces. These portraits were virtually unknown in his lifetime, for he only painted his family and professional sitters whom he dressed up as Greeks or Italians.

Richard Duqué tells all about Quai d’Orsay

parisdia9 February 2018Non classéLeave a Comment

Ambassador Duqué at l’Ecume des Pages

There was a snow storm outside and hundreds of Parisians were stuck on the motorway trying to get home. But this did not deter Richard Duqué‘s colleagues and friends who all rushed to the wonderful bookstore of Saint Germain des Prés, l’Ecume des Pages, to buy his Memoirs of a diplomat, “Une Vie au Quai, de la guerre froide au chaos du XXI e siècle”. It was a moment of great joy for ambassadors who had been all around the world and had not seen each other for some time. The evening was a triumph and the book is brilliant, witty and modest with numerous personal anecdotes on how the Great and Mighty do their diplomacy. Read More