“The Theatre of Emotions” at Musée Marmottan-Monet, did not move me

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Johannes Moreelse, “Marie Madeleine repenting”, ca 1630, Caen Musée des Beaux Arts

An art critic friend of mine told me that if I wasn’t moved by the show “Le Théâtre des Emotions” at Musée Marmottan-Monet, it meant it was too intellectual for me… Which I concede. The paintings gathered here are all interesting and some of them are even beautiful, but I never found the link between them. Yes “Le verrou de Fragonard” (Fragonard’s bolt) is lent by the Louvre and it is a fascinating work about desire and fear, but why include Alberto Giacommeti’s “Large Head”, Hans Richter’s “Visionary portrait” at the end of the show? I loved of course the room with lovers which includes a Courbet and an Emile Friant. The theme of madness is also well treated. And children are charming. The scenography is as always exquisite. But do these emotions relate to each other?Read More

The news of Easter week

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Marina Rebeka, in tears, while the public gave her a standing ovation, with conductor Maurizio Benini and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris at TCE

The first wonderful surprise of the week was to hear Marina Rebeka in Anna Bolena by Donizetti at Théâtre des Champs Elysées. She replaced at the last minute Sonya Yoncheva who was sick and will sing again next month at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. If you are around, make sure to book your ticket. She is just amazing in the part. Karine Deshayes had also replaced Marianne Crebassa as Jane Seymour and this last minute reshuffling gave a special resonance to the evening where the public literally went wild. At Galerie David Zwirner, the Brazilian artist Lucas Arruda, paints silence in the jungle with a magic light. A new galerie Raphael Durazzo opens on rue du Cirque, next to Place Beauvau with a group of German post war painters and the very trendy Kamel Mennour sides with the mythical Claude Bernard to show Maryan, the Polish painter (1927-1977) whose estate he has taken over.Read More

Marcel Proust and his mother at MahJ

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Marcel Proust, 1892, Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Marcel Proust was baptized but he loved his mother who was Jewish. At Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, Professor Antoine Compagnon and curator Isabelle Cahn have produced an exhibition on the writer’s Jewish world with -disappointingly- already well known paintings recently shown at Musée Carnavalet and at IMA. The greatest discovery of the show is Baruch Weil, 1780-1828, his great grand-father on his mother’s side, who was born in Alsace and conquered Paris with his successful porcelains. He became the official circumciser of the first Parisian synagogue in Paris, on rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth which he helped finance and built in 1822. He was vice president of the French Jewish Welfare Committee. He married twice, had thirteen children, founded a successful porcelain factory in Fontainebleau and died at 48! He received the Legion of honor from King Charles X. What a character. And this Thursday 21 April at 8 pm, the Quatuor Tchalik, will play César Franck with their sister Dania at the piano. This talented family of Russian parents, is composed of Gabriel and Louise, violins, Sarah, alto and Marc, cello. Read More

“The Christie affair”, by Nina de Gramont

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Nina de Gramont, a determined writer

I had read only one book of short stories by this talented and distant cousin, “Of Cats and Men” published in 2001. She has since published five more books and her latest one, “The Christie Affair” is on the New York Times best seller list. And it is a fantastic read. Nina used an article on Agatha Christie’s disappearance for eleven days, at 36, after her first husband Archibald Christie dumped her. And she imagined what the author could have done in her secret hiding place. She had just published “The murder of Roger Ackroyd” and was already a well known figure in England. A clairvoyant, Horace Leaf is called on the case. On December 14, she is found in Yorkshire at the Swan Hydropathic hotel where she registered under her husband’s mistress name, Teresa Neele. When her husband meets her there, she says she doesn’t remember anything. Doctors think she might have suffered amnesia due to the choc of the separation.Read More

At Château de Fontainebleau, balls and parades are on tapestries …

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Branle at the court of Henri III, 1581-1583, Paris Musée du Louvre (branle is a fast dance in a circle) with Catherine de Medici, Henri III and Christine of Lorraine on the left

“There never was in France such a display of magnificence and “courtliness” as during the last years of the reign  of Henri II” writes Madame de Lafayette in her historical novel La Princesse de Clèves. This is one of the reasons to go and see the new show “L’Art de la fête à la cour des Valois” (Festivities at the court of the Valois), from François I to Henri III (1515 to 1589) and admire the three unique tapestries ordered by Catherine de Medici which are loaned to château de Fontainebleau by Gallerie de Uffizi in Florence. The quality of the embroidery and the fine portraits and sceneries depicted on the works is not only very modern, but also very vivid and there are no other known example of feasts being illustrated on tapestries. A hundred works, including Renaissance musical instruments and  many Primaticcio drawings, descriptions of royal parades and embassies, could not have found a better place than this treasure of Renaissance style which includes the chapel, the galerie François I and the ballroom. And the good news is that a new restaurant has just opened inside the castle,  with a view of the basin.Read More

Yoshi Takata, Pierre Cardin’s Japanese assistant, is remembered at Thaddaeus Ropac

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Pierre Cardin Collection, with Hiroko at the center

Yoshi Takata was always with Pierre Cardin. She was his first assistant in charge of the Asian market, his Japanese muse, shadow, intercessor. I knew her well in the 1980’s when she lunched at Espace Cardin in the gardens of the Champs Elysées and was always available to give a tip or exchange nice words. But strangely enough, I had never seen her photographs which are exhibited at Thaddaeus Ropac, in the Marais until April 19. Nor had I ever known that when she arrived in Paris in 1954, after she had worked as an interpreter for Agence France Presse in Tokyo, she met all the important photo reporters of the time, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, and Edouard Boubat who took her around and showed her the capital. Read More

Cameroun is celebrated twice this week at l’Odéon and at Quai Branly

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Entry gate of Chefferie de Bana, photo Nicolas Eyidi

This week marks a double success for Cameroun, the large country in Central Africa, which is home to Djaïli Amadou Amal, the writer (in French) of “Les Impatientes”, winner of Prix Goncourt des Lycées in 2020 and Ambassador for UNICEF since. She has been named Writer of the Year 2021 by Trophées de l’Edition, and a ceremony at Théâtre de l’Odéon crowned her on Thursday night. Her book is published by HarperVia in New York next September. And a superb exhibition “On the road of the chefferies in Cameroun” at Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac with colorful costumes and 800 square meters of decors. 230 of the works presented come directly from Cameroun, from the families and “chefferies” united in the association “La Route des Chefferies”. And their collection of thrones is unique.Read More

Romanticism is there, but unevenly

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Henry Monnier, La Lecture (reading), 1834, reminded me irresistibly of British actor Rupert Everett in the 1980’s

Just when Musée de la Vie romantique is opening a new (dreary) exhibition “Héroïnes Romantiques” (Romantic heroines until September 4), we learn that Musée des Beaux Arts d’Orléans has acquired at auction in Munich, Marie d’Orléans’ portrait by Ary Scheffer (1839), which had remained in her son’s Philippe de Wurtemberg’s family ever since. And at Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes, the opening of a charming exhibition of XIX th century drawings was the place to be last Tuesday. You can still catch it until April 29.Read More