In Rambouillet, antiques make a come back with Gabriel Wick

parisdiaArchitecture, Art, Furniture2 Comments

La Laiterie de la reine, (the Queen’s milk room) was conceived and designed by Hubert Robert at Louis XVI th’ request.

Château de Rambouillet is not the most interesting building in the world but this new exhibition, “Vivre à l’Antique“, curated by Gabriel Wick  and Renaud Serrette, makes us discover fantastic wood panelings and la Laiterie, a building conceived by Louis XVI with painter Hubert Robert to lure Marie Antoinette into this hunting lodge which the king loved particularly of its rich reserve of animals. The Queen only came once but this little jewel of a building gave the occasion to Sèvres porcelain manufacture to create ravishing cups with cows, goats, sheep and tits supported by goat heads. It also inspired beautiful marble medallions by Pierre Julien on the theme of milking, butter making and breastfeeding. All of this with a Greek and Roman influence.Read More

At Galerie Maria Lund, Lyndi Sales lands from South Africa

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“Radiating fulfillment”, 2021, acrylic on paper, 6 500€

Born in 1973, in Johannesburg, Lyndi Sales has become in the last twenty years, one of South Africa’s most prominent artist. She represented her country at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and this is her fourth exhibition at Galerie Maria Lund, “On being” (until June 19). From her studio in Cape Town, she is searching for an elsewhere and is searching for a reunion. An escape to better connect to the world, to others, to herself. A love quest in the platonic sense, where love means a progression towards the knowledge of beauty and in fine the access to the indivisible. Read More

In Deauville, a spectacular new cultural space

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The cloister of the convent has been turned into a spectacular reading space with design furniture © Naïade Plante

I happened to be in Deauville, the Normandy seaside resort which could be compared to Easthampton, for a golf tournament, when I heard that Les Franciscaines, a new cultural space set in an old Franciscan convent was opening the very same day. What a wonderful coincidence. This turn of the century resort which is now very, very busy with weekenders and local inhabitants, has a beautiful beach where racehorses train in the morning and courageous bathers swim in the cold channel water. The 6 200 square meter convent was renovated with great refinement by architect Alain Moatti and includes free public spaces for reading newspapers and magazines, two galleries for special exhibitions (5€) and a small museum dedicated to painter André Hambourg who died in 1999. The media library includes films, books and music for children and adults, and offers incredibly beautiful spaces for relaxation. Read More

Petit Palais is open again with a fabulous prints show

parisdiaArt, Books2 Comments

Marc Chagall, “Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi” (gouache préparatoire pour les Fables de La Fontaine), Livre troisième, fable IV, ca 1927
Gouache on paper, Private collection, © ADAGP, Paris, 2021

It was such a pleasure to walk into the Petit Palais again at the invitation of Christophe Leribault, its whimsical director, who can transform a prints exhibition into fireworks! “Edition Limitée” (Limited edition) is devoted to the Vollard collections of prints, rare illustrated books, bronzes and vases, and Henri Petiet’s part in the continuation of his work. The famous merchant of impressionists of rue Lafitte invested huge amounts of money made with the sale of paintings to print and publish Picasso, Bonnard, Cassatt, or Maillol’s books. He died abruptly in 1939 in a car accident and his prints were acquired as a whole by Petiet whose life as a collector can be discovered in the biography written by his grand niece, Christine Oddo, ” Petiet : The art and the dealer” with an introduction by Daniel MarchesseauRead More

Louise Bourgeois illuminates Karsten Greve’s gallery

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The Couple, 2003, aluminum, suspended work

One of the most extraordinary exhibition to open this week is Louise Bourgeois at Galerie Karsten Greve. This retrospective of works by the Franco American artist, is made of pieces from 1946 to 2007 which were acquired directly by Mr Greve during their 30 year collaboration. The artist moved to New York in 1938 after marrying the art critic Robert Goldwater and will become the first woman artist to get a restrospective at MoMA, in 1982. The theme of the couple is at the center of her work and is represented here by two fountains which connect to each other through a water pipe among other sculptures. Her totems in different materials are omnipresent and a series of prints related to her sister’s leg amputation is gripping.Read More

The Blue Light of Krøyer explodes-at last- at Marmottan!

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Double portrait of Marie and Peder Severin Krøyer, 1890, Skagen, Skagens Kunstmuseer (Each one painted the other)

Visiting the new Krøyer exhibition at Musée Marmottan with an artist, Erik Desmazières, the member of the Académie des Beaux Arts who was recently named its President, was a double privilege. To discover such a luminous Danish artist through his paintings in Skagen, in the North of Denmark, and getting to see his works through the eyes of such an excellent printer as Desmazières is a very exhilarating experience. The show which is hung at Monet’s museum (but not open at the moment), was made possible thanks to loans from the Skagen Museum of Art and private collectors as well as Musée d’Orsay. And a number of Monet paintings owned by Marmottan, will find their way to Skagen in 2022…Read More

A museum for mother of pearl is a true find, an hour north of Paris

parisdiaArt, Technique13 Comments

The Musée de la Nacre is set in an old button factory

Le musée de la Nacre et de la Tabletterie is located in Méru, a town with 12 000 inhabitants, which was at the end of the 19 th century and until 1972, THE capital for buttons manufacturing in Europe with 10 000 workers. Visiting the old workshops, with a demonstration of six or seven operations on the original shells to create a pretty button, was enlightening, and the countryside is so pretty that you can turn this visit into a full week end with the visit of Van Gogh’s Auvers-sur-Oise and the l’Isle Adam museum Louis Senlecq, nearby. Beauvais and its fabulous tapestries and cello festival in early June, are just thirty minutes away….Read More

Books, more books and lunch gossips

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Virginie des Horts was signing wildly at Galignani’s

Stéphanie des Horts is not only one of the most fun ladies in Paris, she is also a prolific writer. After publishing a book on Jackie and Lee Radziwill in 2019, she is now concentrating on  “Les Heureux du Monde”, the heroes of the Cap d’Antibes in the 1920’s, Sara and Gerald Murphy who inspired “Tender is the night”. You can follow Stéphanie and the Roaring Twenties in Cannes on May 21 and in Saint Tropez on May 22 where she will be signing her book. But it’s in Paris at Galignani’s that she was holding court last week and everyone was happy to see each other in this disguised cocktail party where you were being given a number at the entrance so that health security measures could be monitored…The rainy day did not stop her from signing over a hundred copies.Read More