Street art at the Petit Palais and “Picasso Iconophage”, the power of images.

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Inti, Encomendacion, (offering) 2024 @Itinerrance

There is lots happening in Paris and some museums will stay open during the games like le Petit Palais which is right in the middle of everything and Musée Picasso which has inaugurated a new show “Picasso Iconophage“. While havoc is reigning over the Seine, noone can cross the bridges anymore by car except at l’Alma and Pont Neuf, buses have stopped operating on most itineraries and three major subway stations are closed around the Concorde, Parisians try to stay sane. The upcoming elections are making everyone nervous from shopkeepers who fear a general recession and have started their sales three weeks early, to MPs who are not sure to be reelected on July 7. Everything is up in the air. Which sports minister will inaugurate the Olympics? Which Prime minister will have to deal with the chaos? So I recommend that you focus on cultural events which are steadily programmed. Read More

MusVerre and Conches sur Ouches, what a festival of glass!

parisdiaArt, Technique1 Comment

Dove in cristallo-ceram with a love message included in Baccarat Crystal, Restauration period, at Musée Decorchémont

I have already told you about these two glass museums which are my favorites in France. One, the Musverre, is very specialized in contemporary creations and can be found on the Belgian border in Sars Poteries. The other, Musée François Decorchémont is 90 minutes from Paris, in Conches, Normandy. Both have a permanent collection and special exhibitions. And both are in very agricultural surroundings far away from the noise of the city…Read More

“Jewels from the Comédie Française” inaugurate the Van Cleef School’s new building

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René Lalique, pin made in honor of Sarah Bernhardt, 1896, gold, emerald, enamel, Comédie française, gift from André Malraux to the comedians

You might remember that last July 4, 2023, I announced the imminent inauguration of the new Van Cleef jewelry school premises in Hotel Mercy-Argenteau, at 16 bis boulevard Montmartre. The opening was delayed one year but the exhibition of “Jewels from the Comédie Française” was worth waiting for. It is great fun, impeccably produced and brings us back to the great stars of the XIXth century like Rachel (1821-1858) and Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). The large white and gold living rooms of the center are devoted to the school but will serve as exhibition spaces eventually. This time the show takes place in the courtyard and mixes  jewelry with great historical portraits. The library specialized in the art of jewelry will open in mid July on the street.Read More

An aristocratic week end in the Sarthe and the Mayenne

parisdiaArchitecture, Flowers and gardens, Happy moments14 Comments

The interior of Basilique Notre Dame d’Evron

A friend of mine, Sabine de La Rochefoucauld, invited me to the ordination of her son Bernard, a thirty three year old graduate of the ESCP business school and a handsome boy. For the last two months, I was utterly excited to be able to witness this “wedding with God”, which such few men undertake nowadays. And so I planned a little trip around this major event which took place in the Benedictine basilica of Evron, a few miles from Laval. I started with the visit of Château du Lude, where I used to attend the sound and light shows (son et lumière) with my mother when I was little and I booked a very nice room at Château d’Hauterive, formerly home of the Montalembert, in Argentré. As the bishop, Nicolas Thevenin, who performed the ordination mentioned, “God blessed our day”, because the weather was sunny and cool and the whole ceremony was a fascinating moment of joy, emotion and reflection. A much needed serenity in today’s world. Read More

Yasushiro Ishimoto, a master of photography in Chicago and in Kyoto

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Katsura Imperial Villa, 1981-1982, Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Center

Le Bal is a very special center for photography inaugurated in 2010 and located behind place Clichy in a discreet alleyway. The exhibition of 169 prints by Japanese American photographer Yasushiro Ishimoto, 1921-2012, is the most striking show I have ever seen there. And this is his first in Europe. Born in San Francisco, he was trained in Kochi, Japan, in an agricultural school before moving to Chicago and studying architecture and photography at the Institute of Design in 1948. In the early fifties, he returned to Japan and brought his radical eye to the country where his austerity and intellectual modernism deeply influenced his contemporaries. He was exhibited in 1953 at the age of 32, at MoMa, by Steichen who asked him in 1953,  to accompany the then curator of architecture, Arthur Drexler, to Japan. But he always considered Chicago as his home.Read More

Women in the Resistance, at Musée de l’Armée

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Shirt made in a parachute’s fabric (silk and later nylon), collection Centre d’Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Lyon

It is of common knowledge that women’s role in the Resistance during WWII was completely underestimated and a small exhibition at Musée de l’Ordre de la Libération (in the Invalides) is trying to give justice to the various silent heroes of the time. Out of 1038 “Companions of the Libération”, there are only 6 women. The last one, Hubert Germain died in November 2021 shortly after Daniel Cordier.  The various homes were a strong fort of Resistance a cache for weapons and a hiding place for aviators or fighters. Many pictures show the young women on bicycle serving as liaison officers in Paris and in the countryside. One book, “The Cost of Courage” written by Charles Kaiser on Christiane and Jacqueline, the young women from the Boulloche family in Paris, is particularly illuminating on this topic.Read More

Who’s who this week? A very young golfer, a diplomat and an artist

parisdiaHappy moments2 Comments

19 year old Valentine Delon on the 18 th hole of the Sanglier course in Lyon

Three wonderful news this week in the Parisian world: Gérard Araud, 71,  former French ambassador to Washington, has been elected President of the powerful association of Les Amis du Louvre, Valentine Delon, 19, and a sophomore at Virginia Tech, has won the French amateur Ladies championship in Lyon. And Eva Jospin is exhibiting her 107 m long embroidered fresco in the Orangerie of Versailles. These three good surprises will help us get through the French elections which only bring out the worst in every party. Fights, jealousy and ultras… Read More

Hugues R. Gall has left us

parisdiaPerforming arts3 Comments

Hugues R. Gall with his slightly ironical smile

Born on March 18, 1940 in Honfleur from a Norman mother and a Bavarian father, Hugues R. Gall died in his sleep on May 25, in Nice, where he lived with dancer Eric Vu-An, who died exactly two weeks later. After studying at Sciences Po and completing a B.A. in German at the Sorbonne, his first professional steps were at Edgar Faure’s cabinet where he developed the teaching of music and the  arts for the baccalauréat and later at the University of Vincennes. Before working with Rolf Liebermann at the Paris Opera, he was secretary general of the Réunion des Théâtres Lyriques Nationaux in 1969, a first step in the career of running the Grand Théâtre de Genève (1980-1995) and the Paris Opera (until 2004), where he commissioned eighty new lyric productions and introduced sixty new ballets. He ended his professional career as an active member of Académie des Beaux arts and ran the House and gardens of Claude Monet in Giverny which received 760 000 visitors in 2023. He was adored by the gardeners and staff  who paid him a special tribute last Thursday, June 13, when he was buried in the cemetery of the Norman town. Read More