A very personal and subjective view of Paris life for all of you who are curious of what's going on in France

Albert Anker, Mädchen mit zwei Katzen, 1888, Sammlung Dr. Christoph Blocher, SIK-ISEA, Zurich at Fondation Gianadda until June 30

With February, skiing season has arrived and if you go to Crans-sur-Sierre or to Verbier, make sure to stop in Martigny at Fondation Pierre Gianadda where the last exhibition conceived by Léonard Gianadda (1925-2023), its founder, opened on February 1. It is devoted to “Albert Anker and childhood”. The Swiss painter has described daily life in the countryside and scenes of French immigrants in a delightful way and gives us an idyllic vision of Helvetic society in the late XIXth century. Raised in Neuchâtel and later in Bern, he studied at the Beaux Arts in Paris and worked towards the creation of Musée des Beaux Arts in Bern. The themes developed in the show are of, school in the open, grape harvest, a young girl playing with dominos, the snow bear, old men playing with children, hospitality offered to soldiers coming back from the war, and young musicians. The curator is art historian Matthias Frehner who wrote the catalog and the exhibition was presented with great emotion by Leonard Gianadda’s son.Read More

Here is my Valentine

Valentine is on a Wednesday this year and it might not be so easy for you to go to Chantilly but a special 45 mn visit is organized with a private tour of the “Romantic” works of Musée Condé at 6 pm (45 € per couple). You can have dinner afterwards at the Capitainerie  for 70 € per guest. A nice initiative to bring “the young and in love” to museums! Many museums in Paris also organize special evenings, like a walk through the orchids” green houses of Museum National d’histoire naturelle,  or a glass of champagne at the Aquarium Tropical at Palais de la Porte Dorée which will be open by reservation only,  from 6.30 to 9.15 pm, just check the nearest to you. Read More

The Large Lake, II, 2022,

Five years ago already, Stéphane Erouane Dumas stunned us with his linear birches and rocks. In 2021, he showed new sculptures and more psychic forms. Today, he is opening a new show at Pierre Alain Challier’s pretty gallery on rue Debelleyme with a mix of birches, lakes, forests, colorful lichens, bronze sculptures, and even jewelry modeled on nature. The canvases are quite enchanting with a variation on icy winter scenes and autumn effervescence. Blue lichens become abstract and yet retain their magic. Yellow lichens bring us gold while birches parade in a true ballet of tree trunks. I particularly liked his new smaller “Cliff and vegetation” where the stone-like pieces carry traces of bright red and green and are shaped like sculptures.Read More

The collages (or embroideries) are made of paper, fabric and paint assembled in an extraordinary patchwork

Galerie Pixi run by Marie Victoire Poliakoff, was the nicest stage, last Thursday night, for the opening of Marc Boisseuil‘s new exhibition of collages “Des Siècles en lambeaux” (until March 3).  The turn out of old friends and collectors was brilliant with Gustave de Staël and his wife  Elena Prentice, both artists, couture designer Adeline André, and Georg Lux creative director of Leonard. The conversation was fun around the success of the blockbuster Nicolas de Staël‘s retrospective at MAM, which is traveling to Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne on February 9, and soon hopefully to New York. Curated largely by his son, it attracted the crowds all winter. The artist Sarah Floch Poliakoff  (daughter of Marie Victoire and artist Floch) was also there, attending to everyone’s needs. At the moment she has a monumental work on boulevard Haussmann covering the façade of beauty shop Aroma Zone and is preparing an exhibition for Galerie Clavé.Read More

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, “Two Friends”, 1895, Gouache on cardboard, Emil Bührle collection

I was invited to the Royal Academy to see  yet another refined show, “Impressionists on paper” with 77 works by Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Cézanne, but also Jacques Emile Blanche and Jean-Louis Forain, who is virtually unknown in England. The occasion was the celebration of the French Law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel’s 20 th anniversary of their London offices and Rupert Reece, head of the British team, was hosting the most interesting Franco British evening.  “In a subtle but seismic shift, the artists lifted the status of works on paper – drawings, pastels, watercolours, temperas, gouaches – from something preparatory that you left in a studio, to artworks in their own right”. When hearing curator Christopher Lloyd explain with great ease, what the exhibition was all about, one felt like listening to an old times lecturer who spoke with no notes and enjoyed himself so much that his passion transported us. After teaching at Harvard, he was Surveyor of the Queen’s pictures for the Royal collection until 2005, and he certainly kept the royal manners…Read More