France filters In his introduction to the history of French art, the historian André Chastel writes: “France filters. It receives and it sifts.” The best demonstration of this is one of the most talented Spaniards of the 20th century, who the...
Al Thani collection: a new little museum in Paris housing an exceptional cabinet of curiosities
Place de la Concorde To travel through time all you have to do is go to Paris to the Place de la Concorde. You will first arrive in the 18th century, visiting the building designed by the King’s architect, Gabriel, sumptuously restored by...
De Kooning: “I’ve always been crazy about Soutine”. An astonishing dialogue between the two genius in Paris
https://youtu.be/q7rBYGoFz98 The legacy of the artist It is utterly fascinating to learn why an artist starts to paint such or such a thing that goes on to secure their artistic legacy. This is the subject on display until 10 January at the...
Fondation Beyeler : Goya is a contemporary artist
https://youtu.be/hpLbQbGgiR8 The fascinating Duchess of Alba There exists not one but two Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). He has gone down in collective memory as a portraitist to the Spanish royal family, where he...
Beyeler Foundation: Goya is a contemporary artist
https://youtu.be/hpLbQbGgiR8 The fascinating Duchess of Alba There exists not one but two Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). He has gone down in collective memory as a portraitist to the Spanish royal family, where he...
Botticelli: the serial production of grace shown in Paris
Autorship Not a year goes by without some controversy over the authorship of such and such an old master, as in the case of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Salvator Mundi (See here and here the last reports about the Salvator Mundi and here about...
Edmund de Waal: follow the artist’s guided tour through the Musée Nissim de Camondo, to celebrate the memory of a vanished fascinating family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvCcyJkZbsg Moise de Camondo First it was a house. From 1911 Moïse de Camondo used his mansion located in the Plaine-Monceau district of Paris as a place to house his collection of French art. Then it...
The Albers, an ultra-modern couple united by abstraction. An exhibition in Paris and a testimony from Sheila Hicks
To think as a couple There are artists – and they are in the majority – who think as an individual, and there are others who think as a couple. This is the case, for example, of Christo and Jeanne Claude who created and authored their huge...
Pierre Matisse: the ‘American’ son of the painting genius who became one of the great dealers of his time
https://youtu.be/RLKOwokicu4 Son of a giant How to exist in your own right when you’re the son of one of the giants of 20th century painting? To put it another way, how do you “kill your father” when your father is Henri Matisse...
In Venice at the Prada Foundation, Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grimani: the three most beautiful exhibitions on show
https://youtu.be/6MAhlc0J7Uc Not the architecture Biennale No, it wasn’t the architecture biennale that made me rush to Venice. I initially found it intellectually stimulating, with all the societal and ecological questions it...
Bazille: artworks by the legendary impressionist painter who died at 28 miraculously appear on the market
A legendary artist For those who are truly interested in impressionist art, Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) is a legendary artist. He only painted for a period of seven years, before dying aged 28 after enlisting in the French army in 1870 during...
The Black artistic renaissance. The phenomenon takes different forms in the United States and in France
Heritage of the traumas https://youtu.be/okH5n9CZbx0 For some time now colonialism, slavery and the heritage of these traumas has been at the centre of an unusual kind of attention, giving rise to what was once called “history painting” up...