The first time I saw Paula Rego’s storytelling paintings at the Tate Britain in London, I was fascinated by their almost perverse weirdness. Finally, a Paris museum, the Musée de l’Orangerie, has turned its attention to this unique artist with … Read More
The Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is simultaneously holding two blockbuster exhibitions, one on Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) and the other on Egon Schiele (1890-1918). The show on Basquiat, a young painter who went from being an iconoclast to an art-market … Read More
How did Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) become the superstar sculptor whose spindly statues are instantly recognizable by just about everyone? The exhibition “Giacometti: From Tradition to Avant-Garde” at Paris’s Musée Maillol helps to answer the question with an ambitious show tracing … Read More
Rome has been pillaged, stripped of many of its precious paintings by Caravaggio! Whodunit? The Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, to the great joy of Parisians and visitors to the city, who for a time can have the thrill of seeing no … Read More
I took a liking to Franz West (1947-2012) as soon as I entered the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and saw this quote by him: “I’ve always thought that the ideal is to do nothing and still be able to … Read More
Fearing monumental gimmickry, I was wary about visiting Paris’s much-lauded new blockbuster attraction, the Atelier des Lumières, billed as a “digital museum.” Why is a screen needed to look at great art; why not just look at the art itself? … Read More
Don’t be surprised, as I was, if you don’t see any Impressionist paintings until the very end of the exhibition “Impressionists in London.” The title is misleading – it would more accurate to use its subtitle, “French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904,” … Read More
The exhibition “The Water Lilies: American Abstract Painting and the Last Monet” at the Musée de l’Orangerie is an uplifting look at the influence of Monet’s late work – which progressively veered toward pure abstraction – on American abstract painting. … Read More
In a letter covered in daubs of paint of many colors, the 29-year-old Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) asked his art supplier to urgently send him paints that were “more liquid than the colors prepared for everyone else,” revealing both his passion for his … Read More
When a friend heard that I was going to see a retrospective of the work of Pierre Soulages at the Fondation Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland, she said, “But it’s all just black, isn’t it?” Well, no. First of all, Soulages has used … Read More
