Category Archive

  I don’t know if you have ever attended a wedding in North Africa or in another Muslim country, but they are fun and they last forever. For having been to Jedah thirty years ago and to Tangiers more recently, I have kept incredible memories from the rituals involved with the bride, the details of the ceremony and of the … Read More

I had heard so many criticisms of the renovation of Musée de la Vie Romantique beforehand that I was completely relieved when I visited it last Friday to see the pretty interiors, and most of the spaces untouched. It is not George Sand‘s house anymore but Ary Scheffer‘s, 1765-1809, the painter born in Holland who taught the children of King … Read More

Musée Carnavalet is traditionally the museum of the history of the city of Paris and it has (until February 8) an interesting exhibition on the population of our town between 1926 and 1936: a new mayor will be elected in March. In 1921, there were more inhabitants (2M89) in Paris than today. 120 nationalities were represented and in 1926, 66% … Read More

Created by a couple of art passionates, Estelle and Hervé Frances, the Fondation Frances owns 900 works of art, photographs and videos, paintings and sculptures of which 70% were created in the 21 st century. I discovered it in Senlis fifteen years ago where it is shown in a a beautiful little house with a view of the cathedral and, … Read More

Victor Hugo is very much in the news these days with the fabulous one woman show “la Misérable”, with Julie Depardieu at Studio Marigny. She embodies Juliette Drouet, the fifty year long lover of the writer whom the curator of Maison Victor Hugo, Gérard Audinet,  called “la seconde épouse”. And the decors shown in this new exhibition “Victor Hugo décorateur” … Read More

Strangely enough, none of the monuments built for the Art Déco exhibition of 1925, which attracted 16 million visitors in eight months (28 April-9 November),  have remained. They stood along the Grand Palais and on Cours la Reine near the Seine all the way to Place de la Concorde and on Esplanade des Invalides. 26 pavilions altogether, built by the … Read More

This week is going to be intense with Art Basel Paris opening on Friday, AKAA which celebrates ten years of African art at Carreau du Temple starting also on Friday, Moderne Art fair on place de la Concorde starting Thursday, Asia NOW, at Monnaie de Paris, Design Miami Paris at Hotel de Maisons,  both starting Wednesday and fortunately close to … Read More