Diego Giacometti (1902-1985), the brother and close collaborator of the illustrious sculptor Alberto Giacometti, has a seat in the pantheon of 20th century decorative arts. Hubert de Givenchy (born 1926), whose creations were made famous by the actor Audrey Hepburn...
There was once a time, until the late '90s, when if you wanted to be considered a prominent artist, you were best off being North American. Back then, money and institutional support was primarily found on the other side of the Atlantic. But thanks to globalisation,...
Edgar Degas (1834-1917), a major artist from the dawn of modernism, both as a painter and a sculptor, died exactly 100 years ago this year. A hundred years is how long it took for a forgotten box containing 55 unseen drawings by this exceptional artist to appear on...
When uncertainty reigns, everyone tries to protect themselves, and the art market is no exception. ‘For some time now, there has been a strong trend towards contemporary artists with recognised careers and a place in history. Serious collectors who previously showed...
The court decision came like a thunderbolt. Guy Wildenstein, the heir to the world’s largest dynasty of art dealers, was accused in France of a massive tax fraud (‘The most sophisticated and longest tax fraud of the Fifth Republic’ (1)) but on 12 January, before the...
In the pantheon of poets, the most prized names are those collectively known as the maudits – the cursed ones. Literature, like art, has been partial to its martyrs, the ones who died too soon, or who were marginalised by society and who appear to have died at the...
There is a unique sensation one feels at sight of a rare few old master drawings, to be found more often than not in museums. It is a beguiling emotion born from the impression you have of a life pulsating behind those drawn faces. They’re by Leonardo da Vinci, or...
The world’s most prestigious museums, the likes of the Louvre and the Metropolitan, fill entire rooms with uncommonly intricate works of art from the Medieval and the Renaissance period. For a long time the great European and American families, banking dynasties such...
Everyone in Miami, from the taxi drivers to the sales associates in the fashion stores, know all about it. During the week they call ABMB for Art Basel Miami Beach, this modern and contemporary art fair imported from Switzerland, the entire city undergoes a...
Paris-Photo, the biggest fair dedicated to photography is held in the French capital for two decades now, and this year back again under the Grand Palais’ glass roof. The true benefit of this mega commercial show is that it attracts the very best specialists in the...
Every year in November and May, the contemporary art auctions in New York are awaited as the final verdict on the overall health of the art market. Their impact is colossal, trickling down across all price ranges, as well as across other areas of the market. This year...
He was a one-time actor, a failed painter and a man of modest means who at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th created an immense body of work that systematically chronicled an old Paris that was in the process of disappearing. From inner courtyards...