At Château de Chantilly things are moving fast!

parisdiaArt, Flowers and gardens, Performing arts2 Comments

Château de Chantilly, © Sophie Lloyd

A new music festival “Les Coups de Coeur à Chantilly” celebrating revered pianist Martha Argerich‘s 80 th birthday, a new administrateur général for the castle, Didier Selles who comes from the Louvre, and a popular “Fête du Terroir” the week end of the 26 th of June. On Saturday July 3, the film Vatel with Gérard Depardieu will be screened at night in the gardens with a cocktail bar and a festive pick nick. The Prince de Condé’s magical castle is moving fast and becoming a rival of Versailles and Fontainebleau with more recreational activities. And it has one of the most gorgeous painting collections in France!Read More

Jean Marie Rouart, César Garçon and Leonie Mason celebrate their ancestors’ talent

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Augustin Rouart, self-portrait with glasses, ca 1980, private collection

French Academician Jean Marie Rouart has made a name to himself in writing books, joining his close friend Gonzague Saint Bris and a group of young Romantics when he was in his twenties. He was a mediocre student and tried many times to pass his Baccalauréat but has since become a respected Academician. He has recently bequeathed to Le Petit Palais (whose director Christophe Leribault is the enfant chéri of Paris’ art scene), 12 paintings by his father Augustin, his great grand fathers Henri Rouart and Henry Lerolle and Maurice Denis. He was particularly moving at the inauguration when he described his father’s anti social habits and his own taste for honors.Read More

In Orléans, youth brings a new image of Velazquez.

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Diego Velázquez, Saint Thomas, Orléans, musée des Beaux-Arts

It all started because the town of Orléans on the Loire river (116 000 inhabitants) is one of the two only places in France (with Rouen) to own a painting by Spanish painter Diego Velazquez. The Musée des Beaux Arts is one of the richest in France due to large donations in the 19 th century, and it is well worth taking the one hour train ride to visit it on the occasion of the new exhibition “On the track of Velazquez’s St Thomas” curated by the very young Corentin Dury and with Guillaume Kientz’s expertise and writings. Thanks to the museums of Barcelona and Sevilla, there are three apostles, St Paul, St Thomas and another head by the master, united in what the curator calls the Apostolado, a word used by El Greco to describe a series of portraits of the apostles. Jusepe di Ribera, Luis Tristan and Francisco Pacheco surround the young Velazquez who painted this portrait while still living in Sevilla before 1623.Read More

Hotel de la Marine opens at last on place de la Concorde…

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Grand cabinet de travail de Thierry de Ville d’Avray, photo Didier Plowy, Centre des monuments nationaux

There was already Hotel de Crillon and Automobile Club, now we have Hotel de La Marine to balance them, all magnificent buildings designed in 1755 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel and fully restored today, with a unique view of what used to be place Louis XV and is now place de la Concorde. And this might seem natural, but if Olivier de Rohan and Pierre Achard had not reacted in 2009, when the sale to real estate mogul Alexandre Allard was being signed by the state, we would have had yet another luxury commercial center instead. Rohan asked Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to preside over Les Amis de L’Hôtel de la Marine and the sale engineered by former minister of culture, Renaud Donedieu de Vabre, was stopped. Read More

The Michel Périnet sale, an event at Christie’s

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Mortlock Islands mask, Caroline Islands, 500 000-700 000€ lot 22

The catalog itself is a piece of art and the estimates of 1-2 million € modest apparently for some of the pieces from the Michel Périnet collection of African and Oceanian art, sold at Christie’s Paris by François de Ricqlès on June 23. Well known for his expertise as an auctioneer, Ricqlès was President of Christie’s France from 2010 to 2019 after performing the record sale of Hubert Goldet‘s collection in June 2001. He has now become an adviser, but picks up the hammer from time to time when the objects are exceptional. Michel Périnet started collecting Art Nouveau and René Lalique from his boutique on rue Danielle Casanova. Then he collected Pont Aven painters and Art décos furniture: his dragons armchair designed by Eileen Gray went on to have a life of its own when they hit the ceiling at the Yves Saint Laurent sale. He was very influenced by the couturier and collector Jacques Doucet.Read More

Drawing now Alternative, a fair always full of good surprises

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Pat Andrea, 2019, “running”, 4000€, courtesy galerie Ramakers, The Hague, Netherlands

Drawing Now has always been one of my favorite fairs in Paris ever since it was at the Carrousel du Louvre and then at Carreau du Temple and I discovered many young artists thanks to it. This year, it was smaller because of health restrictions and called Alternative, yet very charming with two major galleries, Anne de Villepoix and Lelong & Cie and many young artists. It only shows drawings or works on paper. I particularly liked the poetry of Marcella Barcelo’s watercolor and ink and Nicolas Daubanes‘ drawings with meteorite dust at Galerie Maubert. Drawings by Jean Pierre Pincemin (1944-2005) and Jean-Charles Blais at Catherine Issert, two older artists, brought me back to my younger years in the 1980’s when they were super famous. And Sopie Bouvier Ausländer was a discovery at galerie Patrick Heide from London. Galerie Backlash was showing the 2021 Prize, Odonchimeg Davaadorj,  always full of grace. Read More

Magic is in the decor! with Benita Kusel.

parisdiaArt, Flowers and gardens, Happy moments1 Comment

Benita Kusel has magic in her hands

Benita Kusel is a painter of decors… She does marble, wood, slate, but mostly frescos on paper with shells, flowers, vegetable and can paint on anything including radiators to hide or ugly chests. For a wedding in Belgium, she painted silk vests, tablecloths in Italy, for a country house she devises a decor of deers and willow trees and with flower designer Baptiste Pitou, who famously had a corner at Hermès rue de Sèvres, she draws floral decors and creates drawings of gardens. She shows her work at the moment in the most eccentric, derelict artist studio on the very chic rue de Grenelle and it is great fun to visit her show, by appointment only.Read More

Five curators for Henri Cartier Bresson at BNF

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Simiane-la-Rotonde, France, 1969. © Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

The new exhibition of Henri Cartier Bresson’s photographs at Bibiothèque Nationale de France is a unique experience which was rehearsed at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice, last fall. Some five years ago, François Pinault, whose Foundation has recently opened in Paris at Bourse du Commerce, bought a bulk of 385 photographs by HCB to help the HCB foundation move to its new premises on rue des Archives. These prints of which there are 6 copies, were chosen by the photographer himself for Dominique and John de Menil in 1973 and is called the “Master Collection”. Bibliothèque Nationale has a copy as does the Menil Foundation in Houston of course, the Victoria and Albert in London, the University of Fine Arts in Osaka and Fondation HCB. Five curators, Sylvie Aubenas, Javier Cercas, Annie Leibovitz, François Pinault and Wim Wenders were asked to chose 53 images among “the perfect prints of my best photos” as the photographer used to call this series. And the result is very enlightening.Read More