Eugène Atget: Voir Paris
Balzac of the Camera
I fell in love with Eugène Atget’s photos of Paris long before I ever set foot on French soil when a friend gave me a book of his pictures many years ago. I couldn’t get enough. While I have seen … Read More
Salammbô
Art Imitates Life Imitates Art
The lovely Musée des Beaux-arts in Rouen is celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of its famed native son Gustave Flaubert with a clever exhibition based on his historical novel Salammbô. Why Salammbô and not the much more famous Madame … Read More
Bourse de Commerce–Pinault Collection
Pinault Pulls It Off with Panache
French tycoon François Pinault’s desire to show his contemporary art collection in Paris has been thwarted over and over again for more than two decades, but now his dream has finally come true. The Bourse de Commerce–Pinault Collection opens to … Read More
Drawing Factory
The Drawing on the Wall
Most of us have been to open-studio events, and while it is always interesting to see artists’ studios and their work, the quality of the latter often leaves something to be desired, leading to art fatigue. At the Drawing Factory’s … Read More
Women Painters 1780-1830
A Place at the Easel
In an entrepreneurial spirit not often found among state-run French museums, the Musée du Luxembourg is offering its exhibition “Peintres Femmes, 1780-1830.” (“Women Painters”) for online viewing for €5 (€9 if you agree to visit the exhibition in the company … Read More
Gérard Garouste: Correspondences
Kafka Explained?
The prolific French painter Gérard Garouste (b. 1946) likes a good story, whether it comes from mythology, religion or fiction. He seems to use these sources to explore the depths of his own unconscious – expressed through colorful, energetically painted … Read More
Le Paris de Dufy
La Vie en Rose in Paris
Some French museums are still optimistically putting up exhibitions in hopes that they will be allowed to open their doors before the show’s announced end date arrives. One of them is the delightful Musée de Montmartre, up on the hilltop … Read More
Parc de Sceaux
Escape from Paris
With Covid-fatigued Parisians desperate for a ray of sunshine, every square inch of space in Paris’s parks and on the banks of its waterways is occupied when the weather is good, mostly by people who have taken off their masks … Read More
Galerie Perrotin
Strange Dreams
One of Paris’s leading contemporary art galleries, Perrotin, in the Marais, is currently holding two exhibitions of interest. The first, “Inner Songes,” features the work of Jens Fänge, a Swedish artist I was unfamiliar with but was more than happy … Read More
Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique
Open Window on Art
Defying the pandemic-induced gloom in the gallery world, commercial spaces seem to be proliferating in Paris’s Marais, with two new ones recently opened, both by Italian gallerists. The latest addition, the tiny Massimo De Carlo Pièce Unique, couldn’t be more … Read More