Christo’s auction at Sotheby’s it’s on the 17 th…

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William N. Copley, Lady Windermere’s Fan, est 50,000 – 70,000 €, Sotheby’s / ArtDigital Studio

Following the death of the artist last May in New York, part of Christo and Jeanne Claude’s art collection is being sold at Sotheby’s Paris on February 17 at 3 pm. Only 22 people will be admitted in the room but you can follow the sale on line and already bid in a silent auction for many works until the 18 th. Altogether 400 lots, paintings, drawings, sculptures and cards by their friends artists, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Claes Oldenburg, Marcel Duchamp, William Copley, Nam June Paik… If you look at the catalog, you see souvenirs from a period, from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, when New York was the destination for all art lovers. The two (they were born on the same day, June 13, 1935) had met in Paris at 23 and spent their life creating together. It is very moving to keep even just a postcard era car plate from this famous couple and some of their preparatory works of the Gates and the Umbrellas are included in the sale.Read More

Poulet Molière by Joseph de Vilmorin

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The chicken cooks for ten minutes in a pan

Joseph de Vilmorin is probably the best amateur cook I know and he practices his father’s recipes as well as his aunt, Mapie, who was one of the most famous food critic in the sixties in France. He sent us a recipe of Poulet Molière which I cooked yesterday and I found it delicious and easy to reproduce. It’s very tasty with a strong lemon flavor. Read More

Cat Loray hangs ceramics in the air

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Virga, a mobile made of hundreds of ceramics sticks

I had never met the artist Cat Loray before and visiting her exhibition at Galerie Fernand Léger, a municipal space in Ivry-sur-Seine, was a moment of pure joy. It is hard labor to get there either by subway (50 mns from Madeleine) or by car (the same length of time and you can’t park) but once you find the art space located under a concrete bridge, a few meters from the imposing Mairie, and surrounded by nasty smells in an abandoned shopping mall, the contrast is a relief. Her mobiles and wandering sculptures are very inspiring and appeasing.Read More

For Valentine a few happy images and a sculpture walk

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A “tableau” of hellebores by Marie Noël de Gary

This year Valentine is on a Sunday but you can spend the whole week celebrating. It’s the time to be inventive and to create your own beauty with little details of your life. Not everyone is as talented as Marie Noël de Gary who always seems to manage beautiful “tableaux” with the few flowers or accessories she keeps at home. Nor as good an artist as Danish painter Lin Utzon who sent in the mail this dove carrying a heart from Majorca. To celebrate love and beauty, I suggest you take a walk across the Tuileries and end up on quai Voltaire, where Patrick Hourcade exhibits the 32 photographs of  “Versailles Nuit” he shot at night at Versailles in the former Alain Demachy gallery,  now called Gradiva. Read More

Scallops are in season!

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Throw some endives into the pan

I was having posh people for lunch and my fridge had some old endives wanting to be eaten. So I decided to cook scallops with endives (instead of leeks usually) and it was a success. The bitterness of the endives made the fish more interesting and there was rice also as a cushion to smoothen things up. So here is the recipe which is super easy.Read More

Pierre Cardin is honored at la Madeleine

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Pierre Cardin died at 98. The gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac held parties at Maxim’s after each one of his openings

The mass for Pierre Cardin (who died on December 29) at Eglise de la Madeleine, was a moving moment of intelligence and wit. The three speakers, two Academicians and Père Bruno Horaist, curé de la Madeleine, spoke with humor and from their heart, with no pomp and no exaggerated eulogism. There was no starization of the event (photographers are not allowed in the church) and Sylvie Vartan and Brigitte Macron were the guest stars, with Prince Emmanuel Philibert de Savoie and his wife Clotilde Courau, of this celebration with 300 participants, which was handled by the Académie des Beaux Arts to which the couturier belonged since 1992. Read More

Lunch is the new dinner and take out is around the corner

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Langoustines with thin slices of pig’s ear and truffles and a caviar sauce, Le Clarence Paris

Since curfew at 6 pm has been installed in the whole of France, panic strikes everyone at 5.30 pm. How can we be back by 6 pm when we have so many things to do, buy dinner, pick up the children from school, go swimming, etc… Well everyone seems to react accordingly and lunch is the new dinner and usually lasts until 4 pm.  Apologetic friends call to ask you to come at lunch time because not socializing at all is just too depressing. Is a nervous breakdown better than the pandemic? That is the question at the moment. And good food is, as always, the answer in Paris.Read More

Anne Marie Milliot, a great “assembleuse”, at auction on Friday

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Lot 19, Composition , 1978, polyptic with five panels, est. 1000€ to 1500€

We all need something to look forward to at the moment and the auction at Hotel Drouot, on Friday 5th of  Anne Marie Milliot‘s studio from 1977 to 1985, is extremely tempting.  This little known woman who died last year, was a minimalist artist who assembled pieces of paper, of metal, with threads in different medium. 100 pieces are put up for sale,  some are multicolor, others are in natural beige paper or cardboard and they will be visible from Wednesday onwards at Hotel Drouot in Room 6 . Read More