At a time when Facebook’s algorithms are blocking users who post Courbet’s “L’origine du monde” on their wall, despite it being visible to all at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; at a time when visitors to the Metropolitan Museum in New York are calling for the removal of...
“My love I think of you always. But the 14 hours a day I don’t spend with you are a torment to me” (30 June [1949]) “I thus accept the situation as it is and will seek a miracle no longer. I am happy when I think of you” (25 October [1949]) “It is...
Gisèle Vienne: "Crowd" While Anne Imhof was staging dark, aesthetically pretentious performances on the theme of gutter punks, which resemble photoshoots for Nordic fashion magazines and for which she was unfortunately awarded the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice...
The art public adores suffering artists. They live badly, they die young, they’re ill, but every now and then they produce extraordinary things. In the rankings of this type of artist the gold medal goes to Vincent Van Gogh, but just behind him there is the Italian...
Jacques Grange is the french superstar of interior design. He has worked for the joint heir to the cosmetics empire and prolific art collector Ronald Lauder, the businessman Leon Black who is just as famous in New York for his elitist taste in art (he is the owner of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ovEJCxnmw Western modernity has been greatly influenced by tribal art: this is nothing new. It is common to see African masks alongside cubist pieces and other modern artworks, as is the case in the excellent Derain...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjxPp2dPZIc This story begins, for me, in 2006 or early 2007 in the lobby of a London hotel. Tom Krens was head of the Guggenheim at the time, a museum he sought to transform into a global brand. He had opened branches of...
On 13 November, Christie’s is set to auction an artwork that perfectly encapsulates the fascination wielded by René Magritte (1898-1967) over the twentieth century. Made in 1949, it is called “L’empire des lumières” (“The Dominion of Light”). In the painting, which is...
Anyone familiar with the art market will still recall with shock that day in 2007, when a media-friendly collector from Las Vegas named Steve Wynn proudly unveiled one of his treasures, a voluptuous canvas by Picasso from 1932 entitled "The Dream", only to hit his...
Every year in Paris from mid-October onwards, and more specifically during the FIAC, a proliferation of exhibitions is inaugurated. We have already mentioned the nasty surprise that came in the form of the Gauguin exhibition at the Grand Palais. The Picasso Museum has...
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is an artist of pleasure and pictorial sensuality. From Brittany to the Marquesas Islands, he often uses warm tones in his paintings, adopting a characteristic spectrum from yellow through to brown, punctuated by pinks, blues and greens. His...
I first met the French businessman, man of letters, and famous art collector Pierre Bergé about 20 years ago at a dinner organized by Sotheby’s in Paris, where we found ourselves sitting next to one another. We spent the whole evening discussing literature, and the...