John Talbott's Paris

Art Deco and its Queen (Tamara de Lempicka) at the Pinacotheque

Two shows at the Pinacotheque of Paris are musts if you are a devotee of art deco.  The first, a survey of objects created during the period has dazzling moments but the second of works by its "queen" Tamara de Lempicka is shocking in its hyper-realism and pristinism if there is such a word.  Never have bodies, especially breasts, been rendered so unreal.

Maurice Esteve at the Galerie Applicat-Prazan

OK, I admit it; I'm a sucker; I keep going to galleries and keep being disappointed; I'll never learn

When Colette pointed a photo from this show to me by Maurice Esteve of the 2nd School of Paris it looked interesting - but it wasn't.

No Wows!

Boudin at the Jacquemart Andre til July 22.

I broke my boycott of block buster and especially impressionist/postimpressionist ones today because we ate lunch nearby and my two friends and wonderful wife wanted to go.  Ironically i was the only one who did because they were so daunted by the hour+ long wait they bailed out.

I loved three of his works - the Pont de Bordeaux for its complexity, the Pointe du raz for its impressionism and the Coin de ferms for its simplicity - none were Boudinesque; Boudin's paintings of beaches striking me like Pisarro's of Montmartre streets, Caneletto's of canald and Sisley's of farms
 - too much of a good thing.  The three are worth the price of admission but not the wait.

Marie Laurencin at the Marmottan and Breuer at the Cite de..... etc. - Interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well I cannot think of any two shows more different and more interesting in Paris today.  Marie Laurencin's work is just as the poster shows - pastel-y, light, airy, feminine (hate letters commence).  Very interesting and different; the perfect antidote to the millionth Monet, Matisse, Dali, Chagall, etc etc etc. blockbuster.

And Marcel Breuer's stuff - whether chairs or bldgs or conceptual drawings - are just so breathtaking, no matter how imitated and reproduced they are.

Both shows are worth a few WOWS!  Laurencin til June 30; Breuer til July 17.

Hommage to Aldo Crommelynck at Sotheby's: Stuff you've never seen and probably will never see again.

People (knowing I love art shows) are forever asking "Have you seen the Dali, the Hopper, the Titian, ah, you name it?" and at my age I feel like asking you mean the one at the Moma in 1953 or Albright-Knox in 1961 or Mellon (that's what we old guys call it) in 1990?  No, the one at the Grand Palais/Pompidou/whatever now.

So to see a private collection of a guy, one Aldo Crommelynck, who actually knew Picasso etc. and painted with him/them and collected stuff never seen, is a treat.  This has Picasso's, Hockney's and Jim Dine's early stuff of which I was brought back to earth with.

3 Wows!  Only regret - M. Crommelynck abandoned making and collecting art in the 1990s to devote himself to "tree-cultivation."  Oy veh.  Only problem - sale is 25 February.  Run.

 

Paris Photos: Wall Art

Van Gogh's Japanese influences at the Pinacotheque until 17 March.

Van Gogh hit my retinas somewhere around 1961-2 when the first blockbuster show of his was held at the Albright Knox in Buffalo if memory serves me right.  Since then I've tried to go back to that shocking day and have never quite repeated the experience.  Today's show at the Pinacotheque was no different; nice but not shocking.

Contemporary Bookcovers and Lumieres de Mer at the Mairie of the 6th; Art from Le Havre at the Luxembourg.

Colette and I were walking past the Mairie of the 6th and spied signs for two exhibits, one of which,

of contemporary bookcovers by 138 artists is in a word - dazzling.

There's not much I can add to that except shout - RUN.  Until January 9th.

The second show there of photos by Alain Zimeray, of the sea at sunset. distant shores and blue rubber boots is very very good but like opening for Bruce Springsteen.

A third show at the Luxembourg Museum is a "small" show of good art by great artists; well, let me explain, it's big, very big, but in this horrible space, as always crowded with people my age (Jeez), 90 works by Boudin, (wonderful), Braque, Dufy, Monet, Renoir, Signac, Matisse, Derain, Van Dongen, Vlaminck, Pissarro (both wonderful!) , Corot, and the lesser-known Friesz,  Manguin and Marquet is not given its proper due.  It should be at the Pinacotheque or the Petit Palais or even the Big Palace, but here it's like the Jacquemart-Andre without the staircases. 

But to the show.  It represents the efforts in 1906, of a group of art collectors and artists who formed the Modern Art Club (Cercle de l’Art moderne) in Le Havre (I'm cribbing aka stealing with attribution) and painted and donated a lot of interesting stuff to the Museum.  Much of it is geographically local but much is not so.

Go? I'd say so, until January 6th.

The Brueghel family at the Galerie d'Art Saint-Honore

The Galerie d'Art Saint-Honore is hosting a show of 42 paintings done by members of the Brueghel family at the Galerie d'Art Saint-Honore til December 15th and we went - me selfishly thinking there'd be a lot by Pieter the Elder so I was somewhat disappointed.  (BTW: people who think I made/make Colette up can see her silouette facing the gallery window.)

1.5 Wows!

The Triennale Design Museum in Milan: Wow, breathtaking it is.

Collage by JAT: Souces: NYT, WHERE & Museum of Design

I'd been reading here and there (the NYT, WHERE, etc.) that the Triennale Design Museum in Milan has only been open since 2007 but it's clearly a hit with locals and visitors to judge from Sunday's crowd.  It features everything from fonts to fountains, from autostradas to adverts and from political slogans to booze posters.  It's one of those art venues that's like going to a Claes Oldenberg retrospective, where everyone's happy and smiling.

A lot of WOWS here.   Go!