Other Amusements

In between the art exhibits, I've been visiting with friends, wandering the streets, poking into shops, and eating wonderful food.

Last week, I went on a tour of Paris auction houses with the American Women's Group.  We had a great visit at Christie's where I found out that the doors are open to the public and it is possible to attend an auction preview or an auction itself even if you aren't bidding.  It was fascinating to hear a description of the auction process and how the staff works with collectors, both those who attend an auction and those who cannot.  We briefly stopped by Sotheby's but didn't stay long.  The star of the visit from my point of view was Tajan.  Drouot is, of course, the original French auction house and until the 20th century, Christie's and Sotheby's were not permitted to auction items in France.  Tajan started his own auction business after a career at Drouot and it was bought several years ago by Rodica Seward, an American whom we had the pleasure of meeting.  She is the only female owner of an auction house in Europe.

Mme. Seward is a Rumanian refugee who migrated to the US at the age of 14, got herself an education and wound up working for Morgan Stanley.  If her business was deals (and making money), her passion became collecting art from very young, emerging artists.  When she 'retired' from Wall Street, she bought Tajan.  It is located in a gorgeous Art Deco building on rue des Mathurins and continues to do the usual business of auctioning collections of various kinds -- jewelry, porcelain, furniture, books, paintings.  But she has begun seeking out young artists, particularly in formerly Eastern Bloc countries, and giving them a presence in Paris.  She rotates her personal collection of these works through the offices on the rue des Mathurins and invited us to see it.   She and her collection are formidable, as the French would say.  Her eye for 21st century artists is uncanny.

Something many Americans don't know about St. Germain, the area of Paris that now seems to be my de facto home-away-from-home, is that it is a hotbed of enthusiasm for American films of the 1930s, 40s and 50s.   Theses movies are shown in little theaters scattered throughout the area, most down tiny side streets.  (The multi-plexes are all on the grand boulevards.)  Brigitte, one of my conversation partners, is a film buff and we have often used our Sunday afternoons for an outing to one of these theaters.  Lucky for me, last Sunday afternoon the Filmothèque du Quartier Latin was showing the original version (with French subtitles) of Billy Wilder's 1957 film Love in the Afternoon (called Ariane here).  It stars Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper and is utterly charming (the French would say mignon).  Brigitte and I repaired to a cafe afterwards for something to drink and had a great conversation (in French as the English half of our conversation had been spent at the movie) about it and other things.

Napoleon III reception room,
Louvre Palac

On Monday, I took a tour of the Napoleon III rooms of the Louvre with the American Women's Group.  This is not a period of French history or interior decoration of which I'm very fond.   But I learned quite a lot.  First of all, I discovered that Napoleon III built almost all of the Louvre along the rue de Rivoli in the mid-19th century.  Louis XIV style, to be sure, but very Haussmanian nonetheless.  He also brought sewer and running water to the homes of Paris as well as gas for lighting.  All the while, blundering around the world, competing with the British in China and elsewhere.  Unhappily for Napoleon III, declaring war on Germany in 1870 was a very bad idea and the end of his public works.


As to the interior decor of the period, one might call it gaudy, but I'd go further and say it is the personification of wretched excess -- red plush and as much gilt as the traffic will bear.   But even here, I was surprised by the simplicity (that's a relative term) and elegance of the decoration of the private apartments, witness the silk wall covering to the right and the ceiling decoration of the same room to the left.
                                                     
I even have good things to say about Empress Eugenie's choice of jewelry.  Her crown and one of her earrings (shown right) are really quite lovely.

On Monday evening, I met Jane for one last dinner (at Semilla down the block from my former apartment) and said good-bye to two other conversation partners, Christiane and Alain, on Tuesday.  Christiane and I are met at the Musée d'Orsay to see their latest exhibition on Dégas.  Alain and I met at the same café across from the Luxembourg Gardens where we've been getting together ever since our first encounter, with the addition that today I met his wife Valerie for the first time as well.

Now it is time to pack up and get ready for my 6 am trip to the airport on Wednesday.  This has been a wonderful visit.  Pretty good weather... plenty to keep me amused... wonderful connections with old friends.  As grandson Isaac once wrote to me in a lovely post card sent during his first visit to Paris as an adult, "Now I understand why you keep coming back!"

Art, Art and More Art

The museums of Paris are full of treasures under any circumstances, but the special exhibits are really extraordinary.  The fall exhibits usually close in January, while most of the spring and summer shows will open in February and March.  So, I've been doing a certain amount of dashing about to see some extraordinary art.

"Tobacco Rhoda"

The Musée Maillol has been showing an exhibit of Pop Art from the collection of the Whitney Museum in New York.   When it first became a popular movement in the sixties, I must say I didn't get it at all.  I mean, who cared about a Campbell soup can?  But this exhibit really put together an explanation of how the artists involved were responding to the consumerism they saw around them and I found a new appreciation for the wit and protest involved in much of it.  Case in point:  my favorite,  "Tobacco Rhoda" (1965) by Mel Ramos.  No photos allowed so this is a photo of the post card, so not great focus, but you get the idea.   What fun!

Portrait by Vigée-LeBrun

Landscape by Berthe Morrisot

The Petit Palais has a show of pastels from their extensive collection, rarely shown because the medium is so fragile.  I was blown away by the delicacy of this form, the clarity of the colors and the subtlety of the effects by artists from Dégas to Redon.  But they cheated a little bit, starting the exhibit with this stunning portrait by Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, who was Marie Antoinette's official portrait painter, fled to Russia during the Revolution and did this piece just before her return to France.  Although I liked the landscape by Berthe Morrisot, I was mesmerized by the portraits, two examples of which are shown left and below.










The Jacquemart-André Museum, one of my favorites, was not to be outdone.  It was offering an exhibition of works from the Hansen collection, which was given to the Danish government by a pair of wealthy collectors, just as the Jacquemart-André was.  They mostly collected Impressionists and what's not to like about that?
                                                   





Here is a lovely one by Pissarro, who turned out to have worked for some years in Venezuela of all places with a Danish artist named Fritz Melbye.  Another one I liked is this still life with pears.

Finally, I visited an exhibition at the Pompidou of the painter Alain Derain, who was very involved with Fauvism in the early years of the 20th century.  He was a friend of Matisse, among other contemporaries, and was a prolific artist, but then he was called up as a gunner in World War I and after the war, perhaps understandably, lost much of the spark that marked his extraordinary output during the decade from 1904 to 1914, which was the focus of this exhibition.

Two of my favorites are this harbor scene and the portrait of his wife.

                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                               

A Coup

My Paris adventure has been wonderful, though it began inauspiciously.    My flight arrived in Paris the morning of January 3 in the midst of a howling windstorm.   We were on a very bouncy approach about 1,000 feet from the runway when we suddenly powered up, up went the wheels and we were off again.  Next thing we knew, we were headed to Barcelona, of all places, where the crew timed out.  So Delta sent us to a hotel, but not before all 300 of us stood for hours, it seemed, in three different lines – each of them staffed by only two people -- for assorted vouchers, room keys, etc.  I got to Paris Thursday morning around 11 without further ado.  

Christmas, Carrousel du Louvre

I have a great apartment in the St. Germain area and the Christmas decorations were still up when I arrived.

Margaret of Angoulême,
Queen of Navarre

On Friday, I staged one of my greatest coups.  The Musée des Arts Décoratifs puts on the most spectacular costume exhibits and their latest one on Christian Dior was closing on Sunday, the 7^th.  By the time I realized how little time I had to see it and went to the web site to buy a ticket, they were sold out on line.  So, I got to the museum on Friday morning half an hour before opening and found a line of folks waiting for tickets that wound around the building and along the Tuileries (we're talking the Louvre Palace here, so a very long line).  It would have taken hours of waiting in the cold with little chance of success.  So I strolled down the street to the Louvre Museum and took in the exhibit of François I and the Dutch Renaissance painters, which was lovely.

I headed back to the Dior exhibit a little before noon.  The line appeared unchanged, so I just walked in the front door like I knew what I was doing and went up to the ticket counter where I announced that I would like to become a ‘friend’ of the museum (which is how the French describe being a member).  I was greeted by a big smile, a form to fill out and in ten minutes, having forked over 40 euros for a very good cause, I had a ticket to the Dior exhibit.  Just in time for lunch at the lovely museum restaurant, Loulou, after which I toured the exhibit.  Mobbed, of course, but there was no way I could have seen it with fewer people – and it was extraordinary.  

Dior came from a wealthy farming family and began his career as the owner of an art gallery.  He moved on to couture with a very artistic sensibility and virtually defined the profile of women's clothes in the late 1940's and 1950's.  It was his view that a couturier should dress a woman from head to foot and the first several rooms of the exhibit were a collection of hats, shoes, handbags, maquettes (three dimensional miniatures of the final garments), and full sized outfits, all organized by color and ranging from floor to ceiling.  It was hard to take it all in -- but stunning.  When he died in 1957, Yves St. Laurent became the head of the House of Dior, and, in line with the changing times, created the more relaxed profile of the early 1960's.  The exhibit included examples of the work of all Dior's successors.  Just amazing clothing.

Friday evening I had dinner with an expat friend at a wonderful little restaurant, Le Récamier, just a stone’s throw from the Bon Marché department store.  It is on a little pedestrian street, rue Récamier, that ends in a delightful, very private park – one of the hidden treasures of Paris.  Le Récamier specializes in soufflés.  I had one with scallops for my main course and the classic soufflé Grand Marnier for dessert.

On Saturday afternoon, I met Christiane, one of my language exchange partners, in the bar of the Crillon for a leisurely tea.  We love taking tea in the great 5-star hotels of Paris.  Always a beautiful setting and the people watching can’t be beat.   Then I attended Evensong at the American Cathedral (it was Epiphany) with Jane Dean, one of Jennifer Potter’s friends who is here for her semi-annual visit, and we had dinner at a sweet bistro, La Fontaine de Mars, on rue St. Dominique.

So, a wonderful beginning...