Man Ray and Fashion
Rag Trade to Riches
Man Ray was Surrealism’s jokester and jack-of-all-trades. The impish-looking American was a painter (not a very successful one, though he saw it as his primary talent), photographer (known for his pioneering photograms, or “rayograms,” and many iconic images, such as … Read More
Tobey or Not To Be
The American Picasso
I rarely review gallery shows on Paris Update because there are just so many of them in the city that it would be outside the scope of the site, but every once in a while an exhibition goes beyond the … Read More
Sarah Moon: PasséPrésent
Time Past and Time Future
I have to admit that, not knowing much about her and having a vague memory of fuzzy, romanticized fashion photos, I was not expecting much from the exhibition “Sarah Moon: PasséPrésent” at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de … Read More
Body and Soul: Italian Renaissance Sculpture from Donatello to Michelangelo
Antiquity Reinterpreted
“Body and Soul: Italian Renaissance Sculpture from Donatello to Michelangelo,” another major exhibition at the Louvre (along with “Albrecht Altdorfer: Master of the German Renaissance”), looks at developments in Italian sculpture in the late 15th and early 16th century. The … Read More
Voyage sur la Route du Kisokaidō
Floating Along the Kisokaidō Road
Back at the beginning of Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate, its founder, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), had five roads built to connect the capital of Edo (now Tokyo) to the rest of the country. A couple of centuries later, two ukiyo-e (“images of … Read More
Matisse: Like a Novel
The Joy of Color by Matisse
Matisse exhibitions don’t happen very often, and when one comes along, it is a major event. The eagerly awaited show at the Centre Pompidou, “Matisse: Like a Novel,” uses Louis Aragon’s Henri Matisse: Roman (1971) as a kind of framework to … Read More
Albrecht Altdorfer: Master of the German Renaissance
The Weird, Wonderful World of Altdorfer
An exhibition about a little-known 16th-century German artist doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, but “Albrecht Altdorfer: Master of the German Renaissance” at the Louvre turns out to be surprisingly entertaining thanks to the sheer exuberance and diverse talents … Read More
The Golden Age of Danish Painting
An Island of Calm in a Sea of Romanticism
The brilliance of the Dutch Golden Age is universally known and appreciated, but who gives a thought to the Danish Golden Age? Luckily, Paris’s Petit Palais is educating us with the delightful and comprehensive exhibition, “L’Âge d’Or de la Peinture … Read More
Paul Valéry et les Peintres
A Poet Rediscovered Through His Taste in Art
During his lifetime, Paul Valéry (1871-1945) was a revered poet and thinker in France, so much so that in 1925 he was elected to the Académie Française, an honor reserved for the immortal few (its 40 members are referred to … Read More
Cézanne and the Master Painters: A Dream of Italy
From Italy to France and Back Again
We often forget how much France owes to Italy. Would French cuisine have earned its reputation as the world’s best if Catherine de’ Medici hadn’t brought Italian chefs with her when she crossed the Alps to marry Henry II? And … Read More