France Magazine #93 - Spring 2010

the best of culture, tr avel & art de vivre

Spr ing 2 010

$5.95 U.S. / $6.95 Canada / francemagazine.org

No.93

The ART & CULTURE Issue

Spo nsors France Magazine thanks the following donors for their generous support.

For additional information on our sponsorship program and benefits, contact: Marika Rosen, Director of Sponsorship, Tel. 202/944-6093 or e-mail SponsorFrance@gmail.com.

Spring 2010 features 30 Metz Goes Modern A new Pompidou outpost brings some of Paris’s greatest art to eastern France

by Sara Romano

38 San Francisco’s Année d’Orsay For seven spectacular months, the Musée d’Orsay’s Impressionist gems will shine in the City by the Bay

by Roland Flamini

46 Friending French Culture American “Friends” are helping to preserve some of France’s greatest cultural treasures, from Versailles to the Paris Opéra Ballet

by Amy Serafin

departments 5 The f: section Culture, Film, Music, Books, Travel, Shopping edited by Melissa Omerberg

20 Interview The Frick Collection’s Charlotte Vignon

by Roland Flamini

24 Rétrospective Yves Klein

by James Redmond

62 Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America

by Tracy Kendrick

68 Temps Modernes Troubled Waters

by Michel Faure

• A cut-crystal

candlestick from Marcel Wander’s new “United Crystal Woods” collection for Baccarat.

See page 19.

France magazine Publisher EMMANUEL LENAIN

Director of Sponsorship Marika Rosen

Director of Advertising Meredith davis

Accountant Maria de Araujo

Interns Brenna Mulvaney Bertrand moine

France Magazine is published by the French-American Cultural Foundation,

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As we wrap up this Art & Culture issue, I find myself thinking about…food.

Museum food, that is. One of the few happy consequences of the squeeze on culture budgets is that arts institutions are dreaming up ever more creative ways to generate funds. For visitors, this means more innovative programming, more cool boutiques and exciting new concepts in museum dining.

When the Musée d’Orsay re-opens after renovations in 2011, one of the big attractions will be its new café designed by the über-hip Campana brothers, whose own work holds pride of place in several worldclass museums. In opting for high design, Orsay is following in the footsteps of other new and refurbished Paris museums that have taken advantage of construction to create artful settings for equally artful cuisine. Georges at the Pompidou (opened in 2000), Les Ombres at Quai Branly (2006) and Le Saut de Loup at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (2007) have effectively hit the reset button for this restaurant genre.

COVER “Untitled Gold The trend is not limited to Paris: The new •Monochrome” (1962) is among the Pompidou-Metz has tapped leading Lorraine chef many stunning paintings on view Jean-Marie Visilit for its Pompidou Bis café, whose in the new Yves Klein retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum and menu will feature regional favorites. And in 2011, Sculpture Garden. Story page 24. the Château de Chantilly will lure visitors with a new restaurant featuring Provence’s two-star chef Edouard Loubet.

Stateside, museum eateries are ramping up the fun quotient through delicious offerings related to special exhibitions. Earlier this year, Washington’s National Gallery of Art invited celebrity chef Michel Richard to create dishes for its Garden Café Français, inspired by the many French paintings in “Masterpieces from the Chester Dale Collection.” Across town, the Corcoran Gallery of Art is offering a French country brunch in conjunction with “Turner to Cézanne.” Meanwhile, San Francisco’s de Young is preparing to roll out a French bistro menu in celebration of its back-to-back shows of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the Musée d’Orsay.

At this writing, there is no word as to what the Hirshhorn may have in mind for its upcoming Yves Klein retrospective. International Klein Blue cocktails at the gala opening would be de rigueur, given that Klein himself served them at his gallery shows.

The museum has no restaurant, but it’s fun to muse about what sort of fare might be in keeping with an artist who pursued “immaterial sensibility.” Klein once staged an art exhibition that consisted of an empty gallery painted white, so perhaps large white plates containing nothing whatsoever would be appropriate. Whether or not this would produce the effect Klein sought through his art is debatable, but it would surely be the kind of money maker that any of today’s cash-strapped museums would envy.

Karen Taylor

Editor 4

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France magazine Editor Karen Taylor

Senior Editor/Web Editor Melissa Omerberg

Associate Editor RACHEL BEAMER

Copy Editor lisa olson

Proofreader steve moyer

Art Director todd albertson

Contributing Design weapon of choice

Production Manager Associate Art Director/Webmaster patrick nazer

Contributors MIchel faure, now

retired from L’Express, is pursuing a variety of journalistic ventures • ROLAND FLAMINI was for many years a Time Magazine correspondent; he now writes a foreign policy column for the Washington-based CQ Weekly and is a frequent contributor to France Magazine • TRACY KENDRICK is a freelance journalist who often writes about French culture • james redmonD is a freelance writer • Sara romano covers French cultural topics for a number of publications • JULIA SAMMUT is a food writer and partner in TravelFood, a company offering custom culinary tours • AMY SERAFIN, formerly editor of WHERE Paris, is a Parisbased freelance journalist who has contributed to The New York Times, National Public Radio, Departures and other media • Heather Stimmler-Hall is an author and a hotel and travel writer for Fodor’s, Hotelier International and easyJet inflight.

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I m a g e courtesy Y v es K lein Archi v es / © 2 0 10 Artists R i g hts S ociety ( A R S ) , N ew Y ork / A D AG P, Pa ris

Dear Readers,

Co llectio n Pér e z Sim ó n, Me x ico, © Fun dació n JA PS, Ph oto BY A r t uro Pier a Ló pe z

magazıne

f Francis Bacon’s Romero de • Julio “Study for Bullfight

Torres’s “Portrait of a No. 2” (1969) is Musée one Woman” at the of the modern works Jacquemart-André is on“Mona display at Lyon’s a Lisa” for the Musée des Beaux-Arts.

20th century.

Edited by melissa omerberg

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Culture

Paris & the provinces

skull. Through some 160 works—paintings, sc u lpt u re s, photo graphs, videos, objects and a selection of astonishing jewelry— t he Musée Ma illol explores this motif as it has evolved through the centuries, from Pompeian mosaics to Damian Hirst’s notorious diamond-encrusted skull. Through June 28; museemaillol.com.

Precious Tapestries The Galerie des Gobelins presents Trésors de la Couronne d’Es-

featuring 20 intricate Flemish tapestries commissioned by several generations of Hapsburg sovereigns— Joanna the Mad, Margaret of Austria, Charles V, Philip II—at a time when this particular art form had reached its apogee. Woven of silk and wool with threads of gold and silver, these “mobile • Hermenegildo Anglada-Camarasa’s luminous “Festival in Valencia” (c. 1907) is one of the Spanish masterpieces frescoes of the North” showcased at Paris’s Musée Jacquemart-André. were considered a noble Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau called for elimi- house’s most precious possessions after exhibits nating the death penalty) to 1981 (when it jewelry and silver. April 15 through July 4; was abolished in France), Crime et Châti- mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr. paris Turner and the Masters ment examines the themes of crime, punJ.M.W. Turner built his reputation as a paint- ishment, violence and evil in art, literature Promises of the Past er by challenging the works of Old Masters, and film. Goya, Géricault, Cézanne, Picas- Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, whom he studied intently. Yet while striv- so and Magritte are but a few of the artists Les Promesses du Passé, 1950-2010 looks at ing to surpass their creations, his own works who explored these topics in their canvases. Europe’s old East/West divide and challengcan be seen as an extended homage to his A caveat: Some of the works on view may be es the idea of art history as something linear forebears. Turner et Ses Peintres offers a rare disturbing. Through June 27; musee-orsay.fr. and continuous. Featuring 160 works, this opportunity to view Turner’s canvases alongmultidisciplinary show highlights the creside some of the masterpieces that inspired That’s Life ations of some of the former Eastern Bloc’s them; the show presents paintings by more The symbols of vanitas art—from the Biblical most emblematic artists and underlines their than 30 other artists, among them Canaletto, verse “Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas” (“all influence on the international art scene. April Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau and is vanity” or “everything is meaningless”)— 14 through July 19; centrepompidou.fr.

Constable. Through May 24; grandpalais.fr. include timepieces, faded flowers, rotten fruit and smoke. C’est la Vie! Vanités de Caravage Les Lalannes Crime and Punishment à Damian Hirst focuses on the most emoIn the poetic and whimsical world of Claude Spanning two centuries, from 1791 (when tionally charged of all memento mori: the Lalanne and her late husband, François-

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C o l l e c t i o n P é r e z S i m ó n , M e x i c o , © F u n d a c i ó n J A P S , P h o t o B Y A r t u r o P i e r a L ó p e z / © ADA G P, Pa r i s 2 0 0 9

pagne,

xavier, a hippopotamus might be a bathtub, a woolly sheep might be a seat and a head of cauliflower might be … a head. more than 150 works by the creative couple, who always exhibited together, are on view in Les Lalannes, a charming retrospective mounted by the musée des arts Décoratifs; the sculptures and objects included in the show are alternately hilarious and exquisite. Through July 4; lesartsdecoratifs.fr.

Paths of Being Not a religion in the classic sense of worshipping a particular god, taoism is a way of life whose ultimate preoccupation is the quest for harmony between man and the universe. the grand Palais looks beyond yin and yang in its wide-ranging La Voie du Tao: Un Autre Chemin, europe’s first major exhibit on this theme. Nearly 250 highly diverse works—among them paintings, sculptures, ceramics, bronzes and textiles— illustrate the philosophical, poetic, religious and scientific aspects of taoism. Through July 5; grandpalais.fr.

Photo CourteSY oF CnCS ; © rmn / thierrY olliVier

Paul Klee Paul Klee was influenced by expressionism, Cubism and surrealism, but his instantly recognizable paintings are sui generis. a master of color and form, his canvases often reflect a dry, quirky humor. the orangerie’s monographic Paul Klee: Chefs d’oeuvre de la Fondation Beyeler traces the most important stages in the career of the prolific, ever-inventive swiss painter. April 14 through July 19; museeorangerie.fr.

Edvard Munch edvard munch is regarded as the most important Norwegian artist of all time, yet his entire oeuvre has been overshadowed by a single canvas: “the scream” (1893). Featuring some 60 paintings and 40 graphic works, Edvard Munch ou l’“Anti-Cri,” at the Pinacothèque de Paris, seeks to remedy that situation; the exhibit

• A Qing Dynasty incense

burner (18th century), part of “La Voie du Tao.”

shows how this unconventional painter was a key forerunner and founder of Fauvism and expressionism and had a radical impact on his French contemporaries. Through July 18; pinacotheque.com.

Lucien Freud “the painter’s obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work,” lucien Freud once said, and this eminent figurative artist—now 88—is arguably obsessed with the details of portraiture. Lucien Freud : L’Atelier, on view at the Centre Pompidou, comprises some 50 large-format paintings as well as a selection of etchings and photographs of Freud’s london studio. Through July 19; centrepompidou.fr.

El Greco to Dalí a successful mexican businessman, Juan antonio Pérez has amassed one of the largest, most magnif icent art collections in latin america; along with paintings, sculptures, drawings, etchings, decorative objects and manuscripts, it boasts a library of more than 50,000 volumes. the musée Jacquemart-andré presents a selection from this collection in De Greco à Dalí : Les • This garment is from an exhibit of Russian opera costumes on view in Moulins. it was designed by ivan Grands Maîtres Espagnols; the 52 Bilibin for Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”— the first opera masterpieces on display offer Diaghilev staged at the Palais Garnier. a remarkable overview of the last four centuries of spanish art. Through Aug. 1; and young lovers, and scenes from everyday musee-jacquemart-andre.com. life, the show presents a number of neverbefore-displayed travel photographs. April 16 Willy Ronis through Aug. 22; monnaiedeparis.fr.

With his warm-hearted images of Provence and postwar Paris, Yves Saint Laurent Willy ronis was a major W hat would hillary Clinton— or any figure in the mid-century number of professional women—be wearhumanist movement. la ing today had Yves Saint Laurent not come monnaie de Paris cel- along and designed the pantsuit? During his ebrates the great photog- 40-year career, Ysl revolutionized women’s rapher, who would have wear, and whether he looked to the street or turned 100 this year, in drew inspiration from imaginary journeys, Willy Ronis: Une Poétique de he always made fashion a celebration. Paris’s l’Engagement. in addition Petit Palais pays tribute to the great coututo his iconic nudes, street rier with an eponymous retrospective that scenes, portrayals of children includes more than 300 articles of apparel

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Culture Chopin Anniversary This year marks the 200th anniversary of the

who provided invaluable contributions to Matisse scholarship. Currently on view at the Musée Matisse Le Cateau-Cambrésis, the show travels to the Musée Matisse in Nice this summer. Through May 30; cg59.fr.

birth of Frédéric Chopin, the brilliant Polishborn composer, pianist and patriot who spent

lyon

half his life in self-imposed exile in France.

Ben Ben Vautier, who generally goes by his first name, first drew notice through his écritures, paintings that incorporated words or aphorisms. He went on to become a key player in Fluxus, a 1960s movement of artists, composers and designers who combined everyday objects with sounds, images and texts (its best known adherent was Yoko Ono).

Strip-Tease Intégral, at Lyon’s Musée d’Art Contemporain, presents the largest retrospective ever devoted to this popular artist.

The 1,000 works on display—paintings, appropriations, performance pieces and installations­­—span Ben’s 50-year-long career.

Through July 11; mac-lyon.com.

bicentennial, including a pair of museum shows: the Cité de la Musique’s Chopin à Paris: L’Atelier du Compositeur, which examines the composer’s artistic universe through paintings, engravings, correspondence, manuscripts, musical instruments and sound

• Eugène Delacroix’s “Portrait of Frédéric Chopin” (1838).

recordings (through June 6; citedelamusique. fr); and the Musée de la Vie Romantique’s Frédéric Chopin: La Note Bleue, featuring paintings, sculptures and drawings by such

artists as Corot, Courbet, Delacroix and Ingres that evoke the aesthetic and artistic climate of Chopin’s Paris years (through July 11; vie-romantique.paris.fr).

Music lovers won’t want to miss the Chopin performances at the Salle Pleyel, where Chopin himself used to play (sallepleyel.fr), the Chopin Festival sponsored by the Société Chopin à Paris (various venues; June 18 through July 14; frederic-chopin.com) or the concerts, recitals and film screenings organized by the Institut Polonais de Paris (institute.pologne.net).

In the provinces, Nohant is the epicenter of all things Chopin; George Sand’s home plays host to the Rencontres Internationales Frédéric Chopin and the Festival de Nohant (June 4 through Aug. 1; pays-lachatre-berry.com/nohant).

along with sketches, archival documents and films. Through Aug. 29; petit-palais.paris.fr.

Contemporary Fashion Following a series of highly regarded monographic shows, the Musée de la Mode et du Textile is presenting its first broad overview of contemporary fashion. Spanning a full year, Une Histoire Idéale de la Mode Contemporaine 1971-2008 is divided into two “volumes,” each covering two decades. Featuring some 150 articles of clothing and accessories as well as 50 videos, Vol. 1: 70-80 is bookended by two groundbreaking fashion-world events: the presentation of Yves Saint Laurent’s 1971 collection and the outrageous 1990 “Les Rappieuses” show by Jean-Paul Gaultier, a.k.a. l’enfant terrible de la mode. April 1 through Oct. 10; lesartsdecoratifs.fr.

EVIAN

Jean Cocteau While many people have seen Jean Cocteau’s

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plays and films—Le Sang d’un Poète, La Belle et la Bête and Orphée had a huge impact on the young filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague—fewer are familiar with his work as a painter, illustrator, sculptor and ceramic artist (not to mention set and costume designer).

Jean Cocteau: Sur les Pas d’un Magicien, at the Palais Lumière in Evian, revisits every aspect of this versatile artist’s life and work. Through May 23; ville-evian.fr. le cateau-cambrésis

Lydia D. In October 1932, a young Russian woman named Lydia Nikolayevna Delectorskaya appeared at Henri Matisse’s studio to serve as his assistant. Within a few years, she had become his secretary, close friend, muse and model, posing for some 90 canvases and hundreds of drawings. Through paintings, drawings, photographs and correspondence, Lydia D., Muse et Modèle de Matisse spotlights the life and work of this extraordinary woman

metz

20th-Century Masterworks Bringing together 500 20th-century works— among them paintings, sculptures, installations, graphic pieces, photographs, videos and films— Chefs-d’oeuvre?, the inaugural exhibit at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, explores the notion of the “masterpiece.”

Among the intriguing questions it raises are: What are the ingredients of a masterpiece?

Who decides what qualifies? Is a masterpiece eternal? And does the very notion of a masterpiece still have meaning today? (See story, page 38). May 12 through Aug. 29, 2011; centrepompidou-metz.fr. moulins

Costume Drama The Centre National du Costume de Scène celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russes—the company founded by Serge Diaghilev in 1909—with an exhibit devoted to costumes from works staged by Diaghilev and his Parisian contemporaries in the early 20th century. Featuring bold colors and geometric or folkloric motifs, most of the 130 pieces on view in Opéras Russes à l’Aube des Ballets Russes are being displayed for the first time; they are accompanied by scale models, drawings and a film series.

Through May 16; cncs.fr.

c o u r t e sy o f M u s é e d e l a V i e r o m a n t i q u e , PARI S

A wealth of events will commemorate the

• Claude Monet’s “Vue générale de Rouen” (1892) is one of the highlights of “Une Ville pour l’Impressionnisme,” opening this June in the Norman capital.

©C. L ancien, C. Loisel / Musée de l a Ville de Rouen

spotlight on... Impressionist Normandy Normandy is known as the Cradle of Impressionism for good reason. In the late 1800s, devotees of plein-air painting—Boudin, Caillebotte, Renoir, Pissarro and especially Monet—flocked to its coastal villages and river valleys, irrevocably altering the course of art history.

Now the region is paying tribute to the movement that brought it so much fame with NORMANDIE IMPRESSIONNISTE, a massive festival that kicks off in early June and continues through the summer. Painting is of course a major focus of the celebrations, but other forms of artistic expression influenced by Impressionism—music, dance, theater, photography and architecture—will be showcased as well.

Rouen is a good place to begin one’s Impressionist tour. Monet famously painted some 30 canvases portraying the city’s cathedral at different times of the day in order to capture the play of light on the building’s façade. Today’s visitors too can watch the cathedral change color during “Nuits Impressionnistes,” an evening light show running from June 1 to September 30.

The historic Norman capital is also the star of the festival’s central exhibit, “Une ville pour l’Impressionnisme: Monet, Pissarro et Gauguin à Rouen,” at the Musée des Beaux-Arts. The show explores the city’s impact on the evolution of Impressionist painting through 100 canvases by some of the movement’s greatest artists (June 5 through Sept. 26; rouen-musees.com). Other monographic and thematic exhibits will be presented at the Musée des Impressionnismes in Giverny, the Musée Eugène Boudin in Honfleur, the Musée Malraux in Le Havre, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen and other venues.

Those who prefer the plein-air aspect of Impressionism will enjoy the region-wide “grand déjeuner sur l’herbe” picnic on June 20, followed by outdoor balls and guinguettes beginning on July 13 and continuing throughout the summer. Aspiring painters can even sign up for outdoor classes focusing on the techniques used by Monet.

Meanwhile, discovering the region’s artistic heritage is easier than ever: The Normandy Tourism Board has mapped out six Impressionist itineraries devoted to the area’s dramatic coastline, charming country lanes, luxuriant gardens, meandering river and unique light. It’s all, well, pretty as a picture.

“Normandie Impressionniste” runs from June through September; normandy-tourism.org.

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Sons & Images • Lyes Salem, Sarah

Reguieg and Mohamed Bouchaïd star in Masquerades.

Music Agnès Jaoui y el Quintet Oficial Dans Mon Pays

Prior to joining up with Jean-Pierre Bacri to become one of France’s most beloved actor/ writer/director teams, Renaissance woman Agnès Jaoui was trained as a classical singer.

Drawn to passionate Cuban, Portuguese and Brazilian sounds, Jaoui revisits some of the musical styles and themes of her popular 2006 debut album, Canta. On Dans Mon Pays, she jams with the Quintet Oficial, bringing her trademark sensual, evocative voice and love of musical performance.

Album highlights include guest appearances

by Angolan singer-songwriter Bonga and Portuguese fadista Camané. (Tôt ou Tard)

On Screen HOME French cinema veterans Agnès Varda and Isabelle Huppert lent their expertise (as

Caravan Palace Caravan Palace

With their high-energy, futuristic, toe-tapping tunes (think Django Reinhardt on speed with a synthesizer) and their unique fashion sense (a nod to 1940s Paris with a punk edge), Caravan Palace has a style all its own. The lead members of this electro-swing band claim to have gotten their start composing a soundtrack for a turn-of-the-century porn flick. (Wagram)

By RACHEL BEAMER Additional film and music reviews as well as sound clips are available on francemagazine.org.

new on dvd ART SAFARI (2009) Self-professed art geek

summer hours (2008) Three adult

Jules and jim (1962) New Wave director

Ben Lewis takes his audience on a globetrotting tour of the best of the contemporary scene, with stops from Paris to Tokyo. Filmed with a guerilla-style approach, Art Safari features discussions with reclusive conceptual photographer Sophie Calle (one of France’s most acclaimed artists) in her home.

Also included are interviews with Parisian gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin and essays

by Lewis on such featured artists as Takashi Murakami and Wim Delvoye. (Icarus Films)

children whose lives have diverged sharply— they even live on different continents—must return to the family home in France after their mother’s death. Torn by their conflicting desires as well as their financial and personal needs, they resolve the difficult task of dividing her country estate and art collection. Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jérémie Renier star in this family drama by versatile director and screenwriter Olivier Assayas. (Criterion Collection)

François Truffaut was only 29 years old when he filmed Jules and Jim, one of his most celebrated films. Centered on a postWWI love triangle, the film is based on the somewhat autobiographical novel by Henri-Pierre Roché and showcases a young, radiant Jeanne Moreau as the passionate and dangerous Catherine. Numerous DVD extras include a documentary on Roché and interviews with Truffaut and Moreau.

(Criterion Collection)

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p h o t o c o u r t e sy o f t h e G l o b a l F i l m I n i t i at i v e

cinematographer and actress) to French-Swiss director Ursula Meier’s debut feature, Home.

Chronicling an isolated family’s distress when a highway is re-opened directly behind their abode, Home explores how they cope with this upsetting change to their previously harmonious way of life. Meier, who also wrote the screenplay, took best director honors at the Festival du Film Francophone d’Angoulême and received a César nomination for best first film. Select screenings. (Lorber Films) LOURDES Sylvie Testud gives a physically intense performance as Christine, a wheelchairbound woman with multiple sclerosis who travels with the Order of Malta to Lourdes. Not especially religious, she becomes the subject of envy and scorn when she experiences a “miracle” and finds that she is able to walk again. Directed by Jessica Hausner (Lovely Rita, Hotel). Select screenings. (Palisades/Tartan) MASQUERADES Lyes Salem (Paloma Delight, Munich) stars in and directs his first featurelength film, a comedy set in his native Algeria. Masquerades tells the story of Mounir (Salem) and Rym (Sarah Reguieg), a brother and sister who are at odds over Rym’s future. Wanting to impress his fellow villagers, proud Mounir concocts a story about having promised his sister to a wealthy outsider. Rym secretly loves her brother’s best friend and, fearing her pending nuptials to a stranger, must convince her true love to act fast. In Arabic with English subtitles.

Select screenings. (Global Film Initiative)

Livres JEAN DESPRÉS Jeweler, Maker, and Designer of the Industrial Age

by Melissa Gabardi

Jean Després got his start during WWI as a designer of airplane engines; that early experience informed his later jewelry and tableware designs, whose geometric, machine-age aesthetic remains stunningly modern. Many of the drawings and designs contained in this lavishly illustrated book—published to accompany an exhibit at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs (see FM No. 89)—have never before been reproduced; the volume also boasts a number of original photographs. Thames & Hudson, $65.

PARISIANS An Adventure History of Paris

by Graham Robb

The author of the recent Discovery of France as well as award-winning biographies of Balzac, Victor Hugo and Rimbaud, Robb presents a series of stranger-than-fiction anecdotes from Revolutionary times to the present—an account of the vast underground quarry that could have swallowed up Paris, the story behind The Count of Monte Cristo, the love affair between Juliette Greco and Miles Davis. Taken together, they offer a multifaceted portrait of the French capital. W.W. Norton & Co., $26.95.

FRENCH COUNTRY STYLE AT HOME

by Sébastien Siraudeau

A contributor to a number of home décor magazines, Siraudeau combines the eye of a collector with that of a decorator. In this new book, he turns his lens to the French countryside, discovering farmhouses, cottages and rural retreats that offer plenty of design ideas. There’s nothing cutesy or overstuffed here—just lots of inspiring interiors that incorporate family heirlooms, vintage linens, architectural elements, bric-a-brac and timeless art and furnishings in a fresh, harmonious way. Flammarion, $ 39.95.

RENOIR

by Anne Distel

Released to coincide with the exhibit “Renoir in the 20th Century,” this gorgeous new monograph might just be the definitive volume on the beloved artist. The author, a noted art historian, traces Renoir’s life and career in engaging prose, placing him in his artistic and social context and offering keen analyses of his painting style. But most striking of all are the lush full-color illustrations—300 of them—that make this hefty tome a true feast for the eyes. Abbeville Press, $135.

100,000 YEARS OF BEAUTY

edited by Elisabeth Azoulay

French cosmetics giant L’Oréal commissioned this five-volume set, which will be used by the Fashion Institute of Technology in its graduate course “Innovations in the Development of the Beauty Industry.” It includes contributions by 300 writers from such fields as anthropology, archeology, ethnology, sociology and psychology. The perception and pursuit of beauty is covered chronologically, beginning with prehistory and projecting on into the future. Gallimard, $295.

CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI

by Catherine Grenier and Daniel Mendelsohn

One of the most important contemporary French artists, Christian Boltanski (see FM No. 90) explores themes such as childhood, identity, memory, time and death through his many projects, which range from books to videos to large-scale installations (a new work, “No Man’s Land,” will be on view in New York this May). This handsome new monograph examines every aspect of Boltanski’s work, which is sometimes eerie, often enigmatic and always haunting. Flammarion, $45.

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Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler

(g) Guides

Wallpaper* City Guide Paris is a

new, fully updated version of the magazine’s 2006 guide to the best design, art, architecture, hotels, restaurants and shops in the French capital. For $3.99, you can also download it as an iPhone app. Phaidon Press, $9.95.

Can’t make it to France this year? No need to travel any farther than Washington, DC, where The Jefferson (above)—the latest U.S. member of the prestigious Relais & Châteaux group—honors America’s original Francophile. Tributes to the third President are found throughout this newly renovated Beaux-Arts gem, from original documents signed by Jefferson to a library filled with leather-bound volumes on Jefferson-era subjects. The beautifully appointed guest rooms and suites are designed to evoke the founding father’s years in Paris, while the spa, with its vinotherapy treatments, references his passion for wine. Plume, the hotel’s acclaimed new restaurant, showcases contemporary French cuisine; its impressive carte des vins includes more than 50 wines that Jefferson himself enjoyed.

Tel. 202/448-2300; jeffersondc.com.

TABLE TALK

• At La Tête dans les Olives (left)—a tiny shop filled to the brim with barrels of extra virgin olive oil,

crates of fresh vegetables, garlic cloves and other ingredients straight from Sicily—owner Cédric Casanova sets a single table for five at lunch and dinner (reservations a must). What ensues is a genuine, and seemingly endless, Italian-style feast: olives, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms with capers, heavenly anchovies, bresaola, bottarga, penne with eggplant and a carafe of white wine to wash it all down.

About €30 without wine. 2 rue Sainte-Marthe, 10e; Tel. 33/6-73-75-74-81; latetedanslesolives.com.

• Yam’Tcha, an intimate Franco-Chinese restaurant whose name means “drink tea,” is one of the French capital’s hottest new eateries. At the helm is Adeline Grattard, who trained at L’Astrance, France’s smallest three-star. This talented young chef serves up the freshest ingredients, steamed or stir-fried in a wok. Try the tofu salad with grilled mushrooms, sesame oil and spicy mustard leaves. €30 at lunch, €45 to €65 at dinner. 4 rue Sauval, 1er; Tel. 33/1-40-26-08-07.

• L’Agrume (right) is run by Franck Marchesi-Grandi, who cooked at some of the world’s finest establishments— Paris’s Plaza-Athénée, New York’s Le Bernardin—before opening his own place. The style is bistronomie chic, and the lunch menu is as reasonable as they come: For €16 you get three small appetizers—scallop ceviche, saddle of rabbit with apples and endives, cream of parsnip soup with pistachio oil, plus a creamy mushroom risotto. Lunch menu €16, dinner menu €35. 15 rue Fossés-Saint-Marcel, 5e; Tel. 33/1-43-31-86-48.

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THE J E F F ER S ON , W A S HIN G TON , D C ; L a t ê t e d a n s l e s o l i v e s , L'Ag r u m e

PARIS ON THE POTOMAC

Food Wine Burgundy by David Downie, photographs by Alison Harris. This comprehensive guide is a must-have for any gastronome or wine aficionado. Along with wineries, wine shops and wine bars, it includes a wealth of eateries— from luxurious restaurants to simple auberges and bistros serving up la cuisine de terroir—as well as the best sources for the region’s many gourmet specialties. The Little Bookroom, $29.95.

Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler All that jazz

• The Villa & Hôtel

Majestic offers guests the ultimate in sophistication and comfort.

If you’re heading to the French Riviera this summer, make sure to put Juan-les-Pins on your itinerary. Jazz à Juan, Europe’s longest running jazz festival, is fêting its 50th, and it’s a party music lovers won’t want to miss. The organizers are celebrating with special

• Just off the Champs-Elysées, the Villa & Hôtel Majestic is breathtakingly elegant—truly the embodiment of French luxury and refinement. Chic interiors combine period antiques and contemporary designs, with many rooms boasting large landscaped balconies. The 4,800-square-foot MajClub Wellness Centre features a heated indoor pool as well as hammams, saunas, treatment rooms and a fitness center. From €500; majestic-hotel.com.

• At the 44-room Hôtel Joyce in Paris’s 9th arrondissement, you can see the writing on the wall—quite literally. In place of headboards, there are sketches of headboards, as well as architectural details drawn directly on the walls. The effect is to turn a simple space into a high-design haven. All rooms have flat-screen TVs, iPod stations and free Wi-Fi. From €160; astotel.com/hotel-joyce-paris.php.

• Named for the charismatic British monarch, Hôtel Edouard 7 is a new four-star establishment with a fabulous view of the Opéra Garnier. The “E7” rooms, with their period furnishings, parquet floors, four-poster beds and warm chocolate-and-caramel tones, have a classic, masculine feel; the Art Deco-inspired “Couture” rooms, adorned with lavish fabrics, rich palettes and theatrical flair, feel more feminine. The hotel bar is making a name for itself among cocktail mavens. From €175; edouard7hotel.com.

• Cannes’s newly renovated Palais Stéphanie just snagged a fifth star. The hotel’s décor pays tribute to some of the screen legends who graced past film festivals; its 261 spacious rooms offer flat-screen TVs, high-speed Internet, a heated rooftop pool, a casino and meeting facilities. From €165; palaisstephanie.com.

• The Edouard 7’s

“Couture” rooms are theatrical and fun.

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events and a line-up of stellar talents including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Keith Jarrett, Paco de Lucia, Diana Krall and bass player Marcus Miller, who will also serve as master of ceremonies.

July 14 through 25; antibesjuanlespins.com.

DAV ID G RIM B ERT; c o u r t e sy o f H ô t e l E d o u a r d 7

Dream land

Bon Voyage

Notes for the savvy traveler Good Deals

•

• Royal Savings Most visitors to the Loire Valley would agree that it’s not a question of which castle you’re going to visit but how many you can fit into one trip. With the new Pass’Châteaux, you can now save money on combined visits to Blois, Cheverny, Chaumont-surLoire, Chenonceau, Chambord and Beauregard. Available at the Blois, Bracieux, Cheverny and Chambord tourism offices. From €18.50; for information, visit bloispaysdechambord.com/fr/structure-du-site/ pass-chateaux/visitez-malin-avec-le-pass-chateaux.html.

• Musical Chairs Enjoy free classical music concerts every Thursday through May in the auditorium of Paris’s Petit Palais. Hosted by Radio France, the hour-long performances start at 12:30 P.M., but arrive an hour early to be sure of finding a seat. petitpalais.paris.fr • Feeling Blue After the success of municipal bike-sharing programs in Paris and Lyon, Nice now has one of its own: Vélo Bleu. There are 90 stations, with 900 bikes available 24/7 in 30-minute increments. And unlike the Vélib’ in Paris, Vélo Bleu subscriptions can be reserved with any credit card online or via cell phone. €1 per day or €5 for a week; velobleu.org.

• Walking the Walk Don’t feel like lugging around a cumbersome guidebook when you’re exploring the French capital? A new Web site, Girls’ Guide to Paris, offers 10 self-guided walking tours you can download and print out. They include “Shop and Walk the Marais and Bastille,” featuring 60 great boutiques; the “Pastry and Chocolate Tour”; and strolls through a variety of neighborhoods. From $1.98; girlsguidetoparis.com.

New passes to Chaumont-sur-Loire don’t cost a king’s ransom.

fast track

The Comte and Comtesse de Vanssay are offering automobile enthusiasts a special treat: As part of an exclusive package that includes a Champagne welcome, a wineand-cheese tasting, a candlelight dinner and three nights at the elegant Château de la Barre,

Michael Schumacher wannabes can take a Ferrari 430GT or a Lamborghini Gallardo for a spin around Le Mans’s famous racetrack or

• Air France has just launched a new category of service between Economy

and Business Class. Dubbed Premium Voyageur, it features 40 percent additional space; look for lots more legroom, leg rests, new seats that afford greater privacy, wide individual video screens and amenities from the Business Class cabin. Premium Voyageur is now available on flights between Paris and New York, Washington DC, Houston and L.A.; next in line are Salt Lake City, Detroit and Atlanta. airfrance.us • It’s worth taking a trip just to enjoy the new perks at Air France’s revamped first-class lounge at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle. La Première offers an Alain Ducasse restaurant; cocktails designed by Thierry Hernandez, the Plaza-Athénée’s talented bartender; à la carte spa services; an art gallery; personal attendants for each guest; and car service to connecting flights.

• Open Skies, British Airways’ business-class subsidiary, will begin providing service from Washington Dulles to Paris-Orly this May—five flights per week for starters, with plans to add more. There are just 72 seats aboard the carrier’s Boeing 757s, 12 of which fold down into fully flat beds. flyopenskies.com

Heather Stimmler-Hall and Julia Sammut contributed to this section.

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through the picturesque Loire Valley countryside. chateaudelabarre.com C h r i s t o p h e F i n o t; a i r f r a n c e ; g u y d e Va n ss ay

NOW VOYAGEUR

Nouveautés

What’s in store

ooh la la

The butterfly, that poetic symbol of ephemeral beauty and transformation, is the inspiration for Van Cleef & Arpels’s exquisite new line of haute joaillerie. Studded with precious gemstones, the brooches from the papillons collection are masterpieces of art and craftsmanship, sure to set hearts aflutter. vcajewelers.com

Puddle Jumpers Aigle’s new Chantebelle Pop boots are perfect for those April showers. Practical but super stylish, they come in a range of Easter egg colors. Bring on the rain!

About $150; aigleboots.com.

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Clean Air Act Introduced in Europe in 2008, the andrea is finally available in North America.

Created by French industrial designer Mathieu Lehanneur and American scientist David Edwards, this botanical air purifier—winner of the Popular Science Inventions of the Year award—harnesses the filtrating properties of plants to cleanse the air of toxins.

About $199; andreaair.com.

Va n C l e e f & A r p e l s ; m o u l i n r o u g e , a i g l e ; a n d r e a a i r

Wings of Desire

If life really is a cabaret, you might as well have the accoutrements. And the moulin rouge can help.

The legendary nightspot is fêting its 120th birthday by launching its first collection of licensed products. Whether you want to dance the cancan in silver high-heeled croco pumps, stop the show with a sparkling Swarovski crystal necklace, intoxicate admirers with a sensual fragrance or bedeck your boudoir with a fabulous feather lamp, there’s something for every aspiring showgirl. €30 to €2,200; moulinrouge.fr.

pipe dreams For his striking new Pretty Vase Collection,

François Xavier Balléry has repurposed the humble PVC pipe. When displayed together, the individual lacquered pieces make for a colorful ensemble that oozes industrial chic. €110 to €140 for individual components; €530 for the collection; domeauperes.com/store or lebonmarche.com.

safe bets Lexon is jumping on the green bandwagon with its new safe collection. The eco-oriented line, which incorporates bamboo, corn-based plastic, LEDs and solar technology, consists of wall and alarm clocks, a pocket light, a calculator and a hand-cranked radio with an iPod port. lexon-design.com

Dutch Treat Long associated with the avant-garde Dutch firm Droog Design, Marcel Wanders is the latest top designer to collaborate with Baccarat. Inspired by nature, his united

l e b o n M a r c h é ; l e x o n ; p e t i t e f r i t u r e ; b a cc a r at

crystal woods

collection includes vases, candlesticks and wine glasses featuring his signature humor and whimsy: Check out the red, face-like stoppers on the decanter and the stick-figure deer candelabrum. From $550; baccarat.com.

fan Club Constance Guisset was named “one of the coming decade’s emblematic designers” by no less a luminary than Philippe Starck. Her fanlike Vertigo pendant LAMP, part of Petite Friture’s début collection at this January’s Now! Design à Vivre show in Paris, is lightweight and graceful, turning in the breeze—and turning heads in the process. €660; petitefriture.com.

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Interview

Charlotte Vignon a new steward for the frick’s fabulous decorative arts collection

A

by Roland Flamini

A funny thing happened to Charlotte Vignon on her way to a legal career in France. After studying law as an undergraduate, it seemed “normal” (as the French would say) to enroll in art and decorative-arts courses at the Sorbonne. Immediately, she was hooked.

In 2000, when she was 25, she took another bold step, coming to America on a highly regarded Mellon fellowship at the Cleveland Museum of Art. A second fellowship at New York’s Metropolitan followed.

Soon recognized as a specialist in French 18thcentury furniture who could do a lot more than merely tell a bergère from a fauteuil, she was then invited to The Frick Collection, once again as a Mellon fellow. This past October, the Frick appointed Vignon its first associate curator of decorative arts. Recently, she talked with France Magazine about her new job and her plans for the museum’s littleknown collection of rare furnishings.

What is it about The Frick Collection that appeals to you?

It has a great and varied collection of decorative arts; many pieces have an interesting provenance and/or were made by some of the greatest artists and artisans. But I am also drawn to their unique context. Here is this 20th-century house—this American home— yet the rooms evoke 18th-century French and British interiors.

The Fragonard Room is a very good example, and its history is fascinating. Four of its panels were originally painted around 1770 to decorate Madame du Barry’s pavilion at Louveciennes, but for some reason, she decided 20

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to return them. Fragonard kept his rejected panels for more than 15 years before installing them along with 10 others in his cousin’s house in Grasse. In the late 19th century, all 14 panels were sold to American banker J. Pierpont Morgan, who purchased them for his London house. In 1912, the entire room was shipped to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an exhibition; Morgan died the following year, and his son and heir then sold them to the famous New York art dealer Joseph Duveen, who in turn sold them to industrialist Henry Clay Frick for $1.25 million. It was Frick’s most expensive acquisition.

Didn’t Duveen do more than simply sell to Frick?

Yes. Duveen Brothers was also an interior decorating firm, and Joseph Duveen played a significant role in the display of decorative works of art at Frick’s Manhattan home. He bought much of Morgan’s vast art collection— Renaissance Italian bronze statuettes, Limoges enamels, Chinese porcelains and 18th-century French decorative arts—and sold many pieces to Frick. It all happened very fast. But his

involvement went beyond that. For example, the Fragonard Room was designed and assembled in France and then shipped to New York. Duveen acted as the intermediary between Frick and André Decour, the decorator Duveen had selected. Duveen also supervised the work from beginning to end.

Would you relate how you came to choose decorative arts as your profession?

What steered me toward the decorative arts was ultimately my interest in 18th-century France. I discovered this fascinating period while studying law. I took a course in the history of French institutions that essentially covered the period from the absolute power of Louis XIV to the French Revolution, and I remember being fascinated when reading Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot…. So after I received my licence in law, I enrolled in the Art History program at the Sorbonne and naturally took classes in 18th-century Europe.

It is impossible to study 18th-century France without studying the decorative arts.

There are great painters and sculptors, and fantastic architects, but the great artistic legacy of 18th-century France remains the furniture of [Jean François] Oeben, BVRB [Bernard II van Riesenburgh] and [Jean Henri] Riesener; the gilt bronzes of Pierre Gouthière; the chairs and beds by [Nicolas] Heurtaut, [Nicolas Quinibert] Foliot, [François-Honoré-

•

Charlotte Vignon in The Frick Collection’s Fragonard Room, famous for its lusciously painted 18th-century panels and rare antiques.

courtesy of the frick collection

Georges] Jacob and [Jean-Baptiste Claude] Séné; the silver by [Thomas] Germain; the carpets and tapestries by the Savonnerie manufactory; Sèvres porcelain and so on.

Did you go on to receive a second degree from the Sorbonne?

Actually, I’m still in the Sorbonne program.

I’m due to submit my doctoral dissertation in April on the dealings of the Duveen Brothers in European decorative arts and Chinese porcelains. In my dissertation, I try to answer questions such as how the Duveens brought all of these works of art from Europe to America, and how they restaged them in 20th-century American homes.

As the Frick’s first curator of decorative arts, what is your area of responsibility?

In addition to the Frick’s important collection of French 18th-century decorative arts, I am also responsible for the museum’s very fine collection of Renaissance French and Italian furniture and objets d’art, the Chinese porcelains and a large number of watches and clocks from the 16th to the early 19th centuries. Most of the timepieces are now in storage, and I would like to put more of them on display.

Where do you place the Frick’s collection of French furniture in respect to others in the United States?

It’s one of the most important collections in the country and one of the few displayed in its original American setting. Most of the collections formed in the early 20th century have either been sold or were given to museums; the Met, for example, received lavish furniture from a number of grand Gilded Age houses, but not the houses themselves!

Early in the 1900s, [Montana] Senator [William A.] Clark had a fabulous collection of French furniture; now it’s at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. Housemuseums are a wonderful window onto the daily life of the past; The Frick Collection combines this historical interest with an exquisite art collection.

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So the “Golden Age” for collecting 18thcentury French decorative arts in this country was between the end of the 19th century and the early 20th?

Yes. At first the furniture came from Britain, where French taste had become popular during and in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution. Then, when America’s new industrial millionaires were looking to create their new identity, they looked to the aristocracy in Europe, first to Britain then to France. French furniture caught their eye because it was more ornate, more striking than English furniture. But it’s also a question of chance, of the market. When rich Americans were hunting for decorative objects, many of these collections were for sale in Britain. For economic and political reasons, the owners were not able to keep their collections—they needed the money.

Would Frick have been able to amass a collection on the same scale today?

What was exceptional in the way Henry Clay Frick formed his collection of European decorative arts is that he acquired it almost entirely en bloc from J. Pierpont Morgan, through Joseph Duveen. If Frick were furnishing his house today, he would probably have to wait

a good while for a great collection like Morgan’s to come on the market. But there are still a few important collections of French 18th-century decorative arts in private hands.

French interior designer Jacques Garcia has one, and there are others in residences on Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue, in the United Kingdom and in France.

Do you have an exhibition of French furniture in mind?

Not yet. It would have to be very well thought out.

Perhaps a specific cabinetmaker?

Maybe. Jean-Henri Riesener could be a good candidate, as he is well represented in The Frick Collection. The same is true of the ciseleur-doreur Pierre Gouthière. Taste or style or the use of Sèvres porcelain in furniture could all be subjects for an exhibition. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between designers and craftsmen.

Where did the model come from? Who had the idea of using a particular ornament to decorate a particular clock? How were these models interpreted by craftsmen in their own creations? I want to explore and understand how these pieces were made, how

they evolved from the original idea to the final product. So it would probably be a show on furniture designers.

Were there actual furniture designers?

There were incidental furniture designers, mostly sculptors and architects. In the second half of the 18th century, there were also ornemanistes—literally, creators of ornaments; they designed furniture, they gave models to craftsmen. The painter Hubert Robert is famous for having designed a set of chairs for Marie Antoinette. In reality, anyone could design furniture, but mostly it was sculptors, architects and ornemanistes who did so.

So 18th-century craftsmen weren’t the Philippe Starcks of their day?

Starck is a designer, not a craftsman. His designs are executed by others. So Starck could probably be compared with 18th-century designers, but not with the craftsmen. The fact that he creates designs for mass-produced objects, however, differentiates him from 18th-century designers. Also, Starck moves in the same social circles where his designs are displayed; 18th-century designers didn’t mix with their aristocratic customers, and craftsmen even less.

A Private Tour with Charlotte Vignon The Frick’s new associate curator comments on some of her favorite pieces.

Marquetry-Veneered Barometer Clock, c. 1690-1700 Oak veneered with ebony, walnut, tortoiseshell and brass.

“This is an excellent example of the Frick’s great collection of clocks. Made by the legendary André-Charles Boulle at the end of the 17th century, it has movements by Isaac or Jacques Thuret, both horlogiers to Louis XIV. It may have been made for the Sun King himself; if not, it was certainly made for someone in his entourage. We know from inventories that the king had one such clock in his bedroom, but it has not been established if it was this one. Ten similar clocks have survived. The back is also well decorated, suggesting that it was placed either as a centerpiece or in front of a mirror so that all sides could be seen.”

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courtesy of the frick collection

Mechanical Table with Sèvres Porcelain Plaques, c. 1781 Oak veneered with sycamore maple, inset with plaques of soft-paste Sèvres porcelain and mounted with gilt bronze.

“This small French table is stamped by Martin Carlin. Here we are in the early 1780s; there was an interest in mechanical devices at the time, and this piece is typical of the period—an extremely exquisite and important piece of furniture with nine elegant Sèvres plaques made especially for it. But that was not enough; back then, you needed to have something extra, and this piece has a series of gears that raise the flat surface up to waist height so that it can become a little table on which to write a quick note. The top also tilts and pivots to become a reading stand.”

How much information is still available about these craftsmen?

A lot. I did my master’s thesis about one cabinetmaker and spent more than a year looking through records at the Archives Nationales in Paris. It’s actually pretty easy; my subject was a chair maker, a total nobody. No one knew anything about him except that there were a few chairs stamped by him. But in a matter of a few months, it was possible to reconstruct his life by going through several inventories of his house and workshop; I found out exactly what he owned, how many chairs he made.

I was able to trace his social connections, his clients and how much he produced in a year.

It’s tedious work because it involves poring over inventories and bills, but the information is there.

decorative arts, British and American furniture and so on. That said, there is still considerable demand for pieces from this period.

What’s your next project at the Frick?

As visitors go from one room to another, they look at the paintings—and I don’t blame them, the collection is amazing. But nobody looks at the furniture because there is nothing that tells you that this is important furniture; the audio guide mentions only three objects.

I would like to make this collection more visible to the public, to let them know that these are very significant pieces. It’s not only the furniture; it is also the Limoges enamels, Sèvres porcelain, watches and clocks. So more labels, small labels but more of them.

And farther down the road?

How is the market for French decorative arts?

French 18th-century furniture and decorative arts are still very much in demand by public institutions and private collectors, especially pieces of the highest quality, even more so if they have a royal provenance. That taste is no longer as dominant as it was in the early 20th century—now there is competition from the Art Deco period, the ’40s, ’50s, 19th-century

I’m currently working on two publications that will feature the Frick’s decorative arts collection. One is a new book on The Frick Collection, with a chapter devoted to the decorative arts; it will be published in French and English later this year by The Frick Collection in association with the Fondation BNP Paribas. The second is a handbook on the decorative arts collection, which will be published by 2013.

And in the spring and summer of 2011, we are going to host a small exhibition on “ Le Goût Turc” in 18th-century France. We will present several objects, including a piece from our permanent collection, designed for a room decorated in the Turkish manner, a style that was very much in vogue among the French aristocracy in the late 1770s and 1780s.

You mentioned that visitors to the Frick are first drawn to the paintings—do you think that decorative arts are destined to always take a back seat to fine arts?

There is a huge audience for Rembrandt, Vermeer, Holbein, Titian and Velázquez, and the decorative arts are unlikely to draw such crowds. That is particularly true in historical house-museums, such as The Frick Collection, where the furniture and decorative arts are seen in a domestic setting. Yet these pieces contributed to the décor in which Frick wished his art collection to be seen, and they help define The Frick Collection as a house-museum. The decorative arts therefore play a crucial role in understanding The Frick Collection as a whole, not only as a superb collection of art but also as a residence that houses a superb collection.

Commode with Pictorial and Trellis Marquetry, 1780-1791 Oak veneered with various domestic and exotic woods including burl ash, bloodwood and tulipwood; mounted with gilt bronze; marble top.

“This commode and its matching secrétaire are among the few royal pieces that found their way into The Frick Collection. We know from the marks inscribed on their backs that they were made for Marie Antoinette by Jean-Henri Riesener, ébéniste du Roi (cabinetmaker to the king). Stylistically, they very much belong to the 1780s. We also know with certainty that when the royal family was confined to the Tuileries at the beginning of the Revolution, the two pieces went with them. Because they needed to fit an interior that was much smaller and less grand than their original setting, Riesener was asked in 1790 to reduce them in size. He changed the marquetry panels on the front, and we think he also removed heavy gilt-bronze garlands that likely surrounded them. These pieces are very interesting for many reasons but especially for their historic significance, as they literally followed the royal family when they were kept under house arrest at the Tuileries.”

Blue Marble Side Table, 1781 Marble and gilt-bronze.

“This table is one of the very few pieces of 18th-century furniture made entirely of hard stone, a blue-gray marble known in French as bleu turquin. Taste for mounted hard-stone furniture and objets d’art was confined to a small group of connoisseurs in 18th-century France. One of them was Louise-Jeanne de Durfort, Duchesse de Mazarin, who commissioned this table. She also ordered a matching chimneypiece and two pedestals, all of which were intended for the grand salon of her residence on the Quai Malaquais in Paris. However, the duchess died before the table was finished, and it was never installed in her home. Beautiful jewel-like gilt mounts adorn this table, which was the collaborative effort of two of the greatest artists working in Paris in the 1770s and 1780s: architect François-Joseph Bélanger, who designed it, and ciseleur-doreur Pierre Gouthière, who cast, gilt and chased the bronzes.”

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• Yves Klein in 1961.

Rétrospective

C h a r l e s W i l p / © 2 0 10 A r t i s t s R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( ARS ) , N e w Yo r k / A D AGP, Pa r i s ; I m a g e c o u r t e s y Y v e s K l e i n A r c h i v e s

Yves Klein

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the curators of a landmark exhibition talk about the shaman and the showman by james redmond

When you hear the name Yves Klein (1928-1962), you don’t think of blue, you see blue, an electric celestial blue, the hallowed hue of the Virgin Mary’s robes in medieval paintings. The French artist, whose brief career ended when he died of a heart attack, used this vibrant ultramarine to create large-scale monochrome paintings.

He saturated sponges with it and mounted them as sculptures. He painted naked young women with it, then had them roll across large canvases, leaving ghostly imprints. He made molds of the “Victory of Samothrace” and “Venus de Milo” and drenched them in blue.

He even planned to bathe the Odelisk on the Place de la Concorde in blue light, but city officials didn’t go for it.

Now, Kerry Brougher and Philippe Vergne, co-curators of “Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers,” want to take visitors beyond the blue. This major retrospective, which opens at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, then travels to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, presents Klein’s celebrated paintings and sculptures but also many of his lesser-known creations—works they believe are the true core of his oeuvre.

Why did you decide to mount an Yves Klein retrospective, and why now?

nately, he died very young and wasn’t able to accomplish everything he set out to do.

Philippe Vergne: The last big Klein retrospective in the United States was about 30 years ago. Since then, a lot of research has been done on this artist, and we think it’s time to take a new look at his work. Klein is very well known for his paintings and sculpture but is less known for his work in other media: performances, music, theater, architecture and, above all, his project for a new society.

Klein’s ultimate work would probably have been to create a new way of living. Unfortu-

Kerry Brougher: We think that Yves Klein is one of the most important figures of the 20th century. After World War II, the avant garde was stuck in a quagmire. Then along comes this completely different kind of artist who literally believed in an “immaterial sensibility,” and that if you could reach that state, you could actually levitate!

In a way, he levitated art out of the doldrums of WWII and into a whole new era

• “Le Vent du voyage,” c. 1961

Many of Klein’s paintings—in particular the monochromes—may appear to be abstract, but that was not Klein’s intention. Each was meant to transport the viewer to a spiritual state beyond the material world. This canvas invites the viewer to feel the turbulence of the wind.

that continues to this day. He opened the doors to so many things: Pop Art, installation art, environmental art, light and space art, conceptual art, performance art…. We want this show to establish his pivotal role in the course of art history.

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• “Architecture de l’air,” 1961

This work is highly unusual in that it combines several of the artist’s areas of investigation: Anthropometries (imprints made by live models covered in paint); “air architecture” (note the woman lying on a bed made of pulsed air); and a manifesto for a new way to live (“man is so free he can levitate!”). It sums up Klein’s vision for his “Blue Revolution.”

tals for people who are bedridden for a very long time, to prevent them from getting bedsores. Klein thought a lot about technology, about ways to bring together architecture and the environment. At the time, his ideas appeared totally utopian. Yet if you look at what is going on today in architecture and technology, he really wasn’t all that far off.

“Klein never thought of himself as an abstract painter—when he

painted a blue monochrome, he was painting space, he was representing the void.”

Klein’s architectural drawings are really quite astonishing.

PV: Yes, he was investigating “air architecture,” a sort of immaterial architecture. For exam26

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ple, roofs made of pulsed air that could repel rain and walls made of fire. He even designed beds where the body floats on a cushion of air.

Today, there are actually such beds in hospi-

PV: Klein was fascinated by what he called “immaterial sensibility.” When he painted a blue canvas, he did not consider it abstract art; it was a “landscape of space.” This led to a fascination with the void, with how to inhabit the void: How can we make use of the void, of all these elements that are invisible and immaterial but that are actually here and that we encounter on a daily basis?

It was about having an architecture that is not about constraints but about freedom. If you can build walls of air, you are liberated from materiality, not only in terms of bricks and mortar but also in terms of possession and materialism. So for him, pursuing “immaterial sensibility” and “immaterial architecture” was a form of social revolution.

In the exhibition, there’s a letter that Klein wrote to Fidel Castro, telling him that the Cuban revolution was completely parallel with his own “Blue Revolution,” and that they should work together! He was definitely thinking way beyond painting and sculpture. Indeed, he used to say that painting and sculpture were merely the “ashes of his art.” For him, his real art was all the untraditional work that he did.

Where did he get his utopian ideas?

KB: I’m not sure that anyone really knows for certain. What we do know is that Klein spent a lot of time in Japan—he studied judo and eventually earned a black belt—and was exposed to Zen Buddhism and Eastern philosophies. Many of his ideas about levitation and leaping into the void, about attaining different mental and spiritual states, derived

Y v e s K l e i n A r c h i v e s / © 2 0 10 A r t i s t s R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( ARS ) , N e w Y o r k / A D AGP, Pa r i s

What prompted him to think in such radically new directions?

from those experiences. He also had an innate desire to find a way forward through spirituality. He was a devout Catholic but was always searching for new paths. For a period during the late 1940s, he was a member of the Rosicrucians. He eventually became disenchanted with them, but the concept of being able to reach different states through mental activity and through colors deeply influenced him.

We also know that as a child, he was very interested in magicians. I think he saw himself as something of a magician who could use his trade to help change the world.

You say that he called his painting and sculptures “the ashes of his art,” but didn’t he continue to make them throughout his career?

claimed his first work was a photograph of the sky above Nice. He also read French philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s writings about the void, which maintained that the color of the void is blue. So for Klein, the best way to give a physical form or shape to his fascination with the immaterial was to use blue.

He eventually worked with a pigment master

in Paris and invented a technique so that the pure color would remain on the canvas. He patented it, and it is called International Klein Blue (IKB). The formula is still secret.

KB: Klein saw blue as a portal, as a way of reaching a different state of mind by staring at the blue. That’s why it’s important that this

“He was investigating ‘air architecture,’ a sort of immaterial architecture.

For example, roofs made of pulsed air that could repel rain and walls made of fire.”

PV: Yes, but you have to remember that his career was very short—only about seven or eight years. I spent a lot of time studying his writings—he wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages—and soon realized that all of his ideas were happening at once. For seven years, he never stopped: He was involved in painting, architecture, performance art…. He was extremely prolific until the last moment. He was a hyperactive person, which may be one of the reasons he had that heart attack.

Many artists have painted monochromes.

How are Klein’s different?

PV: He never thought of himself as an abstract painter—as I mentioned, when he painted a blue monochrome, he was painting space, representing the void. Klein once submitted an orange monochrome to be shown in a Paris salon, and it was refused. The jury told him that if he would just add a little dot or a line or something, they could show it because it would then be an abstract painting. But he said no, that his paintings weren’t abstract but were landscapes of space and freedom.

Klein used a number of colors in his monochromes, but blue became the dominant color. Why?

PV: For him, blue was absolute space. He

• “Dessin fontaines de feu,” c. 1959

Klein’s fascination with the void led to his experimentations with “air architecture,” also known as “immaterial architecture.” The artist imagined structures made of air, water and fire— elements that would free man from materialism and the need to possess. In this drawing, he presents his plan for a public plaza featuring fountains made of fire and water.

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who could have a real impact on the world.

So along with paintings, he did interventions, such as Dimanche, the “newspaper of a single day” that he put out in Paris and that completely explains the kind of work he was trying to accomplish. He also created a gallery show known as “The Void,” essentially an empty gallery that he painted white. Visitors would enter through a blue curtain, but the only “thing” in the room would be a sense of the artist, created in effect by his absence. And at one of his openings, he released 1,001 blue balloons to make a statement about his “Blue Revolution.” These were not just stunts but were part of his work. Klein blurred the line between making objects and what we would call today “performance art” or “intervention.”

• Klein sometimes used drama and humor to convey

his ideas of “immaterial sensibility.” In the above image, some 100 guests attired in black tie look on as Klein’s models cover themselves in International Klein Blue before pressing their bodies against paper. In the background, an orchestra performs Klein’s “Monotone Symphony”—a single note played for 20 minutes followed by 20 minutes of silence (what the artist called “audible silence”). Staged on March 9, 1960, at a Paris art gallery, the event prefigured both performance art and conceptual art.

• “Anthropométrie sans titre (ANT 127),” 1960

Anthropometry paintings such as the one at left were made by models that Klein called “living paintbrushes.”

“Art isn’t merely an object with a very high price tag. What makes

art is the way you perceive the world, and this notion of perception is what Klein was all about.” exhibition be installed properly, that paintings not be hung too close together or juxtaposed in ways that make them start to look like decoration. They weren’t about one thing next to another, they were about the individual object as a portal to somewhere else. In that sense, I see his work as a precursor to the light and space art of the late ’60s and ’70s.

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Would you tell us a little about some of his other artistic endeavors?

KB: Klein purposefully blurred the lines between his life and his art. He was very ambivalent about whether he was a painter or even an artist per se, and he struggled with the notion that the artist could be more than a simple object-maker, that he could be a man of ideas

KB: Indeed. Klein was talking about some very serious notions: the concept of using the color blue to reach an immaterial state as opposed to a material state; the idea of introducing a new spirituality in art that really hadn’t been there since Kandinsky and that had been destroyed in the ’30s and ’40s; the idea of harking back to Delacroix’s insistence on color over line. But I don’t think that it would have been possible for anyone to take any of this seriously unless it had been infused with a dose of humor, and there’s a lot of humor in Klein’s work. He was very serious about all of this, yet he would inject a sense of the overly dramatic, to the point of being almost absurdist.

But after talking with his widow and reading his writings, I really believe that he was totally sincere in his own humor-filled way.

He absolutely believed that people could reach a different state of mind through his art and through their own art. This was a radical change from the way art was being made in Europe in the late ’40s and early ’50s; Yves Klein was really a turning point between modern and contemporary art.

Do you see a paradox between being someone who pursued the immaterial yet produced such beautiful objects— including a coffee table?

KB: It is a paradox. Here’s what I think: Klein made his most radical work way too early in his career. In 1954, he produced “Yves Peintures.” It’s a sort of portfolio with a preface

S h u n k- K e nd e r / © 2 0 10 A r t i s t s R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( ARS ) , N e w Y o r k / A D AGP, Pa r i s / © R o y L i c h t e n s t e i n F o u nd at i o n

I believe that your co-curator calls Klein “a shaman and a showman.”

that goes on for several pages but that is nothing but blank lines. So you have a book without words. That is followed by what are supposedly 10 plates reproducing monochromes that he made in the 1950s. Each one is signed “Yves” along with the city or country it was made in. The truth is, none of these paintings ever existed. He simply cut out rectangles of commercially dyed paper and put them into these portfolios.

So here you have an artist who has created a work that leads you to think that he has created paintings that actually don’t exist.

Therefore, the work really exists only in the viewer’s mind. Already, he was introducing the idea that a painting doesn’t have to be a real painting; that conceptually, something can exist as an idea without existing as an object. But I think that he thought that he had gone way too far too early, so he backed off; he knew that if people were going to understand what he was doing, he would have to make some objects. Otherwise, they would not perceive him as an artist. That’s when he began making the monochromes and focusing on the color blue. So yes, it was a paradox, one that he understood very well.

Y v e s K l e i n A r c h i v e s / © 2 0 10 A r t i s t s R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( ARS ) , N e w Y o r k / A D AGP, Pa r i s

In recent years, Klein’s paintings have been commanding ever higher prices at auction. Why do you think that is?

PV: He’s a fantastic artist! And of course, there is the market reality that the more rare a work is, the more valuable it is, and Klein had a very short career. In addition, people know this retrospective is coming, and that focuses more attention on an artist. But people are also taking a new look at Klein’s work and are realizing that it has been undervalued when compared with American artists from the same generation.

Isn’t it rather ironic that people are willing to pay so much for works that the artist himself referred to as “ashes”?

PV: Klein was a very skilled artist, and he was very aware of the aesthetic quality of his work. But he was also very complex. Kerry and I hope that when people leave the exhibition, they will understand that Klein’s art can’t be summed up only by his paintings, no matter how beautiful they are. And we would like them to take that idea a step further, to the notion that art isn’t merely an object, a fetish, with a very high price tag. What makes art is the way you perceive the world,

Clockwise from top left: “Untitled Blue Sponge Sculpture,” c. 1960; “Blue Globe,” 1961; •“Untitled,” 1957; “Excavatrice de l’espace,” 1958.

Klein was fascinated by pigments and believed that each had strong associations for the viewer. For him, blue was the portal to space, to the immaterial, making it an important component of works ranging from sponge sculptures (representing the idea of being “impregnated” with immaterial sensibility) to the “Space Excavator” he created with Jean Tinguely.

and this notion of perception is what Klein was all about. An object can help you get a different perception of the world, but Klein was more interested in the perception than in the object that facilitates that perception.

So yes, the fact that a Klein painting is worth millions of dollars is in itself a contradiction. He used to say, “OK, my paintings are good and great, but they are not my real art.” What does it mean, then, when a monochrome painting sells for millions of dollars?

“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” is coorganized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. It is co-curated by Hirshhorn deputy director and chief curator Kerry Brougher and Philippe Vergne, director of Dia Art Foundation and former deputy director and chief curator of the Walker Art Center. The exhibit runs from May 20 to September 12, 2010, at the Hirshhorn (hirshhorn.si.edu) and from October 23, 2010, to February 13, 2011, at the Walker Art Center (walkerart.org).

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Goes Modern

France’s great modern art collection is breaking out of the capital, thanks to a new Pompidou outpost in the eastern town of Metz

By Sara Romano

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Japanese architect Shigeru Ban’s design for Pompidou-Metz was inspired by a hat he saw in a Paris shop.

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Throughout its history, Metz has played unwilling host to many an invader, from the Romans who rolled over the local Celtic tribes in the 1st Century A.D. to the Germans who occupied the city from 1940 to 1944. Now, this eastern French city is sustaining an invasion of another sort: A large object shaped like a giant shiitake mushroom appears to have landed on a vacant lot near the train station. This intriguing UFO turns out to be the Pompidou Center’s first offshoot outside Paris.

The museum will open in May with an inaugural exhibition of 500 works, including masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse and Braque, some of which will be leaving the mothership for the first time ever.

The Centre Pompidou-Metz was conceived at the

turn of the millennium, reflecting the French government’s new determination to share national treasures concentrated in the capital with the rest of the country. Jean-Jacques Aillagon and Bruno Racine, then respectively Minister of Culture and president of the 32

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Pompidou Center, were the driving forces behind the project, imagining a dynamic arts center that would mount four temporary exhibitions each year, with curators borrowing predominantly from the Paris headquarters.

“We are putting together our programming in a spirit of independence and interdependence,” explains Laurent Le Bon, 41, who worked as a curator at the Paris maison mère before being appointed director of Pompidou-Metz in 2005. “We are aiming for exhibitions that can be seen only in Metz and are consulting with Paris to make sure there’s no duplication with their programming.”

Metz will not have a permanent collection, for the simple reason that art is so expensive today. Le Bon argues that even France’s greatest contemporary art patrons—François Pinault and Jean-Louis Arnault—couldn’t afford to create their collections from scratch if they started today. To illustrate his point, he notes that buying the works in Pompidou-Metz’s inaugural exhibit would cost 40 times more than the building itself.

An alternative would have been to borrow works from Pompidou Paris for long-term exhibition, but that idea was rejected as well. “It’s very difficult in our business to say, ‘These loans will stay here for five years,’” says Le Bon. “Within two months, you’ll get a letter from a friendly foreign institution saying they’re putting together a show, and

The new museum looks out over the old city of Metz, with expansive views of its famous cathedral.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: An architectural rendering of the voluminous nave; the glass elevator in the central support column; architect Shigeru Ban; the timber structure with a pattern designed to evoke France’s hexagonal shape.

Opposite Page:

you’ll lend them works and then will have to change your display.”

Like Pompidou Paris, Metz will be a cultural hub focused not only on painting, sculpture and the visual arts but also on film, music, the performing arts and debate. “In the 1970s, the Pompidou Center revolutionized the notion of creativity,” says Le Bon. “We will stick to its multidisciplinary philosophy. Creativity isn’t limited to oils on canvas and bronzes on plinths, no matter how beautiful they may be.”

The annual operating budget, projected at €10 million (about $14 million), will be covered by local and regional governments. The center itself cost €70 million to build—no small change but still less than half the cost of Louvre Lens, the Louvre Museum’s new outpost under construction to the north. Slated to open in 2012, Lens will differ from Metz in that it will have a permanent collection sourced from the Louvre’s core holdings, which span pre-history to the 19th century. Curators will be able to display and juxtapose these works in ways not possible in Paris, given the Louvre’s organization into rigid departments. This is not an issue at the Pompidou, which is devoted entirely to modern art.

Pompidou-Metz’s distinctive design emerged from

an architectural competition held in 2003. Richard Rogers—who along with Renzo Piano designed the original Pompidou Center—

headed the jury, which included Bruno Racine, elected representatives from the region and several architects. Six semifinalists were selected from among 157 entries; the short list included such international stars as Herzog & de Meuron—architects of San Francisco’s de Young and London’s Tate Modern—and Dominique Perrault, who designed Paris’s Très Grande Bibliothèque. All names were kept secret during the selection process; when the votes were tallied, 14 of the 16 jurors had favored the project submitted by Japan’s Shigeru Ban. Ban’s structure is a tall timber web of hexagons topped by a Teflon canopy that looks like a floppy hat. Running through the structure are three long, rectangular drawers, or galleries, that are at 45-degree angles to one another and have bay windows overlooking Metz. The highest peers out on the old town with its majestic Gothic cathedral. All told, the center offers 60,000 square feet of display space, making it one of the largest institutions devoted to temporary exhibitions in Europe. Each gallery is 45 feet wide, giving curators the option of building partitions in whatever shape they like: high, low, curved, straight, circular.

Compared with the elegant stone townhouses and 18th-century mansions lining Metz’s main avenues, the Pompidou really does look like an errant spaceship. Yet Ban has in fact made every effort to connect his work to the nation it was built for: The overall shape of the Franc e • SP R I N G 2 0 1 0

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“L’Aubade” (1942)

by Pablo Picasso Painted during the war years, “L’Aubade” expresses how everything in life has been grotesquely transformed by the ongoing conflict. The typically happy serenade theme—one notably taken up by Titian in “Venus with an Organist”—is twisted into a suffocating image of a dark, confined space, reflecting the artist’s feelings toward the oppressive Occupation and its curfews.

“La Tristesse du Roi” (1952)

by Henri Matisse At the end of his life, Matisse used the humble art of collage to create monumental masterpieces on a par with the greatest classical compositions. Here he references Rembrandt’s “David Playing the Harp Before Saul”; considered his ultimate self-portrait, the artist is represented by the black figure surrounded by the pleasures that have enriched his life: music (the scattered leaves), the Orient (the green odalisk) and women’s bodies (the dancer).

Chefs d’oeuvre?

Pompidou-Metz debuts with a spectacular opening exhibit Centre Pompidou-Metz intends to open with a visual bang this May. Some 500 works will make their way eastward from the French capital in what director Laurent Le Bon calls “the biggest loan operation in the history of the Pompidou Center.”

The inaugural show will occupy all four of the center’s giant spaces: three galleries on different levels as well as the vast lobby area, or nave.

It will be seen in its entirety from 34

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May to October 2010, then close in stages to make way for separate shows that, one by one, will open in each of the display spaces.

For those who have never made it to Pompidou Paris—and even for those who have—Metz has some rare treats in store. A notable highlight is one of Matisse’s largest collages, the monumental “La Tristesse du Roi” (“Sadness of the King,” 1952), considered his late-life masterpiece. It is the artist’s homage to Rembrandt’s “David Playing the Harp Before Saul,” a Biblical scene depicting the young David seeking to console the aging monarch. Here, the elderly Matisse is reflecting on

his own advancing age. “This is the first and probably the last time it will leave Paris; that’s how exceptional, fragile and emblematic the work is,” explains Le Bon. Another traveling treasure is Picasso’s “L’Aubade” (1942), “the greatest masterpiece he produced in the thick of World War II,” says Le Bon. Picasso made countless preparatory sketches for it over the course of a year. Painted in a Cubist style, it depicts a female mandolin player serenading a reclining nude.

Though inspired by Titian’s “Venus With an Organist,” the scene is painted in stifling shades of grey and brown, reflecting the censorship

that Picasso suffered during the war years, cloistered in his studio. His hatred of war is palpable.

Yet another gem is a triptych by the Catalan painter Joan Miró: “Bleu 1, Bleu 2, Bleu 3” (1961). While they may appear abstract, these paintings were completed after Miró’s trip to the U.S., where he fell under the spell of the works of Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko, and are inspired predominantly by nature.

Entitled “Chefs d’oeuvre?,” the exhibition is the new art center’s way of asking what makes a masterpiece in this day and age. It’s also a playful wink at those sneering observers who predicted that Pompidou-Metz

“Bleu 1, Bleu 2, Bleu 3” (1961) by Joan Miró This canvas is from a triptych completed after Miró returned from a trip to the United States, where he was greatly influenced by the Abstract Expressionists.

Inspired by nature, the paintings evoke open spaces, serenity and contemplation of the vast heavens, achieving the artist’s longtime goal of “attaining the maximum intensity with a minimum of means.”

“Accord RÉciproque” (1942)

by Wassily Kandinsky The Centre Pompidou has one of the world’s most important collections of paintings by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who spent the last 10 years of his life in Paris.

Considered a pioneer of abstract art, he painted this canvas two years before his death, incorporating shapes and colors that create an open, airy composition that contrasts starkly with the war then going on around him.

would get no masterpieces, only leftovers from Paris.

“Everyone has an opinion as to what makes a masterpiece,” explains Le Bon. “For modern-art lovers, the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp are of fundamental importance, but perhaps for the general public, they’re a little harder to digest.” Works such as the Miró triptych will appeal to a broader swath of visitors, as will Kandinsky’s “Accord Réciproque” (1942) and Chagall’s “La Noce” (1910).

“Our mission above all is to convey the message that art history is to be taken as a whole,” says Le Bon. “What we’re trying to say

is that Picasso, Matisse, Léger, Braque and Brancusi are doors through which, to this day, we see the world differently.”

Subsequent exhibitions will be announced in May, after Le Bon has assessed the tastes of the visiting public and figured out what would work best for them. To give an idea of what he has in mind, though, Le Bon refers back to the exhibitions that marked the inaugural years of Pompidou Paris—“Paris-Paris,” “Paris-Berlin” and “Paris-Moscou”— “multidisciplinary art-historical frescoes presenting new points of view.

That’s what’s going to make people come to Metz.”

—SR

roof echoes the hexagonal map of France, and its components are also perfect hexagons. In the center of the building, a support column is topped with a spire that rises 77 meters—an homage to the Centre Pompidou’s opening in 1977.

The architect claims that the museum’s unusual shape was inspired by a visit to Paris in 1998. “I saw this hat in a Chinese craft shop in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and I was astonished at how architectonic it was,” Ban recalls in a Pompidou-Metz publication. “The structure is made of bamboo, and there is a layer of oil-paper for waterproofing. There is also a layer of dry leaves for insulation. It is just like architecture for a building. Since I bought this hat, I wanted to design a roof in a similar manner.”

Ban, who has offices in Tokyo, New York and Paris, is especially known for working with offbeat materials—the way he sees it, whenever a new material is invented, it ought to be used for construction purposes. He is a virtuoso when it comes to cardboard tubes, which he uses in both temporary and permanent designs. In 1995, when the Kobe earthquake left 5,100 dead in that Japanese port city, Ban famously came up with so-called Paper Log Houses made with donated 34-ply tubes, as well as a Paper Church. He subsequently shipped more of his Paper Log Houses to Rwanda and Turkey while working as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He is also a founder of the Voluntary Architects Network, a group of professionals who donate their talents to disaster-stricken areas, and is currently working with an NGO to build temporary clinics in Haiti.

The project that raised Ban’s international profile most, however, was the Japanese pavilion he dreamed up for Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. Simply put, it was a grid of paper tubes with a paper top.

He even managed to slip a temporary edifice into the PompidouMetz project when he built a tubular office on the sixth-floor terrace of the Pompidou in Paris. To avoid renting expensive office space in the French capital, Ban had asked if his team could work from the Pompidou Paris premises; Bruno Racine agreed on the condition that Ban shoulder the cost of operating the structure, make it visible to visitors from the outside and give it to the Pompidou when the project was completed.

In the Pompidou-Metz publication, Ban notes that museum directors and artists often fret that “architects design museums more for themselves than for the art. I wanted to design something that would be a good museum but also send a strong message.” Director Le Bon seems pleased with the end result and lauds Ban’s openness to dialogue. “We really do have a building that’s at the service of art and artists,” he says. “Shigeru Ban is sometimes caricatured for being an architect of emergency situations and of the ephemeral, but here, he shows another facet of his talent.”

Metz sits at a crossroads between France, Germany,

Luxembourg and Belgium, and the new center hopes to draw visitors from all of those countries and beyond. Those who conceived it a decade ago seem to have cast more than a sideways glance at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, a spectacular design in shiny titanium by Pritzker-prizewinning architect Frank Gehry. Since opening in 1997, the museum has put the somewhat sleepy city of Bilbao on the global cultural map and revived its economy, though critics point out that visitors come mainly for the building, not for the ever-shifting exhibitions.

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Shigeru Ban is renowned for using unconventional materials in both temporary and permanent structures. top: The architect designed this office made of cardboard tubes to house his team while they worked on the Pompidou-Metz project.

Bottom: The structure is located on the sixth-floor terrace of the Centre Pompidou in Paris—a convenient way to avoid steep Paris rents while giving museum visitors an opportunity to follow the project’s progress.

top:

they drew up a document that read, “While not wanting an architectural design that is too monumental, the building’s visual impact as it is approached, either from the town’s historic center or from the station, is clearly of paramount importance.” The Spanish precedent was explicitly mentioned: “A paradigm would be the successful museum in Bilbao, also built from the ground up.”

Today, Le Bon and the rest of his team dismiss any comparisons.

“You can compare us on paper, but in practice, we’ve got nothing to do with Bilbao,” says Le Bon. “On the one hand, you have one of the biggest cities in Spain right near the coast and a gigantic investment on the part of the Basque government. On the other hand, you have a museum in Lorraine with a very different relationship to Europe.”

According to Emmanuel Martinez, secretary general of the Metz museum (and Le Bon’s deputy), a number of other cities applied for the honor of hosting Pompidou II, but Metz won for three reasons.

First, its location a half-hour from Luxembourg, 45 minutes from Germany, an hour from Belgium and two and a half hours from Switzerland. Second, the city had almost no debt and could come up with the necessary funding, thanks to the participation of 39 surrounding towns. Third, there were few if any museums or galleries in the area.

“This region is not richly endowed with major institutions. It’s a bit of a cultural desert,” explains Martinez over lunch at a local brasserie. “Metz was annexed by Germany in 1871 and missed out on all of the urban development that took place in France in the early 20th century.”

The other half-spoken reason for selecting Metz is that the city is part of Lorraine, a region that was left in a state of economic collapse by the demise of the local steel and mining industries in the 1970s. The hope is that the new Pompidou will create jobs; already hotels, restaurants, offices and apartments are planned for the area adjacent to the museum. City officials also expect Metz to become much more of a cultural center, with more movie theaters, performance halls, art galleries and resident artists. “We would be very happy if Metz were to become a new cultural capital of Europe,” concludes Martinez. “That’s the bet we’re making.”

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In 2006, artists and architects created works inspired by Louis Vuitton bags that were displayed in this pavilion designed

by Ban. Perched on the seventh-floor terrace of Louis Vuitton’s Paris headquarters, it featured a cupola made of paper tubes covered in the company’s signature fabric.

Bottom: Ban built this temporary structure in 2006 as part of the Cézanne in Provence festival. Located on the grounds of the Vasarely Foundation, the umbrella-like canopy was made of paper tubes and PVC membrane.

Centre Pompidou-Metz opens to the public on May 12, 2010. Admission is €7 for adults, free for those under 26 years of age as well as for other categories of visitors. The center is closed on Tuesdays. 1 Parvis des Droits de l’Homme; Tel. 33/3-87-59-89-39; centrepompidou-metz.fr.

The Basics GETTING THERE Inaugurated in 2007, the LGV Est line has put Metz-Ville a hop, skip and a jump from Paris—or an hour and 20 minutes, to be precise. Pompidou-Metz is a two-minute walk from the TGV station—the spaceship-like edifice is visible the minute you step off the train.

For information on ticket prices and schedules, go to raileurope.com.

Those who arrive by car (190 miles or about three hours from Paris) can take advantage of the art center’s 700-space parking lot. The closest airport is MetzNancy Lorraine, about 11 miles (20 minutes) from downtown.

Information, brochures and other resources for planning your trip are available through the Office de Tourisme de Metz, which also offers a boutique stocked with gifts and souvenirs.

2 place d’Armes, Tel. 33/3-87-55-53-76; tourisme-metz.com.

Grand Hotel If you’re looking for comfortable, modern and reasonably priced lodgings, check out the three-star Grand Hotel. Housed in a recently renovated 18th-century mansion just steps away from the cathedral, it offers 62 rooms with plasma-screen TVs and free Wi-Fi. Doubles from €79. Tel. 33/3-87-3616-33; hotel-metz.com.

LODGING

DINING

La Citadelle, a former weapons depot built in the 16th century, reopened in 2005 as Metz’s only four-star hotel.

Dark leather furniture and a stylish redand-black palette have transformed what was once a stash for gunpowder and ammunition into a pleasant weekend getaway. The 77 soundproof rooms and two suites have plasmascreen TVs, free Wi-Fi and wheelchair access. Doubles start at €205.

5 avenue Ney; Tel. 33/3-87-17-17-17; citadelle-metz.com.

Le Magasin aux Vivres, located in La Citadelle hotel (see above), is among the city’s recommended gastronomical stops. Chef Christophe Dufossé’s menu opens with his signature cassolettes gourmandes—mini-casseroles such as lobster gratin, roasted duck foie gras or tofu. Like the rest of his dishes, they vary with the seasons so that guests may enjoy ingredients at their peak of quality. Prices range from €39 for the lunch menu to €105 for a 10-course tasting menu (drinks not

TOURIST INFO

Clockwise from top left:

included). Closed for lunch on Saturday as well as Sundays and Mondays.

5 avenue Ney; Tel. 33/3-87-17-17-17; citadelle-metz.com.

Another gourmet attraction is the Michelin-starred L’Ecluse near Metz’s fabled market and majestic cathedral, whose stained-glass windows were designed by Marc Chagall. The contemporary décor frames views of the Moselle river and the old city of Metz; in good weather, you can sit out on the delightful terrace. Ingredients are

Terrace dining in downtown Metz; a cheerful welcome at the Grand Hotel’s reception desk; a room in the chic Citadelle; chef Christophe Dufossé’s signature cassolettes gourmandes at Le Magasin aux Vivres. Below: Chef Jean-Marie Visilit, who is creating the menu for the restaurant in Pompidou-Metz. sourced from Metz’s market, and the inventive menu offers such dishes as jamón ibérico on a beet and Comté carpaccio and Saint Pierre sur la plancha served with a truffled potato purée and truffle shavings. A la carte about €50 per person, exclusive of beverages; closed Saturday lunch, Sunday nights and Mondays. 45 place de Chambre; Tel. 33/3-87-75-42-38.

To experience the city’s latest culinary experience, you need go no farther than Pompidou-Metz itself. The center has recruited renowned Lorraine chef Jean-Marie Visilit to create a menu of simple but tasty regional dishes for Pompidou Bis, the center’s top-floor restaurant with panoramic views. At this writing, the menu has not yet been announced.

For the full Visilit experience, you can visit Domaine La Grange de Condé; formerly the chef’s family farm near Metz, it is now a luxury auberge with a restaurant that serves vegetables and herbs from the chef’s own organic garden. Menu favorites include such local dishes as homemade terrines and foie gras, saucisson lorrain, gratin de cuisses de grenouilles à la mode de Boulay and lapin aux mirabelles. About €50 à la carte; menus at €16.50, €23, €36 and €49. 41 rue des Deux Nieds, 57220 CondéNorthen; Tel. 33/3-87-79-30-50; lagrangedeconde.com.

—SR Franc e • SP R I N G 2 0 1 0

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The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)

San Francisco’s

Année d’Orsay For seven spectacular months, the Musée d’Orsay’s Impressionist gems will shine in the City by the Bay ~

By Roland Flamini

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The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)

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Rue Montorgueil, Paris by Claude Monet (1878)

The Bridge at Maincy, near Melun by Paul Cézanne (c. 1879)

“N

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” Polonius

counsels his son, Laertes, in Hamlet. Sound advice for most people, but not for museum directors. Blockbuster shows—the big, important exhibitions that draw crowds, bring excitement to the art world and focus renewed attention on even the most venerable institutions— depend on the time-honored practice of loans between museums.

A case in point is the de Young, San Francisco’s old, established fine arts museum, which re-opened in a new high-design building in 2005. It has a long history of successful mega-shows: In 1979 “King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” attracted 1.3 million visitors; a reprise of the show 30 years later was another big hit. Other blockbusters have included “Picasso: the War Years 40

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(1937-1945),” “Imperial Tombs of China” and “Monet in Normandy.”

In 2008, a major exhibition devoted to contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly lured 150,000 visitors during its first month alone.

This year, the de Young hopes to wow the art world with not one but two shows consisting entirely of paintings on loan from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The first, “Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay,” opens on May 22 and runs through September 6. The second, “Van Gogh, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay,” will be on view September 25, 2010, through January 18, 2011. No wonder President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his preface to the hefty catalogue, says the exhibitions have created “a veritable ‘Orsay Year’ in San Francisco.”

The two shows will boast some 240 works, including many of Orsay’s greatest treasures—chefs d’oeuvres by Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Degas, van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Renoir, Sisley, Seurat and Vuillard. The genesis of this visual feast is a typical example of the curiously free-wheeling and highly personal way in which the world’s leading museums do business among themselves. Last February, John E. Buchanan, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF, which comprises the Legion of Honor and the de Young museums), was in Paris for the auction of the art collection belonging to his late friend Yves Saint Laurent. While in town, he dined with

The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873-1876)

The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)

“The Birth of Impressionism,” the first of the two de Young shows, begins in 1874 with the appearance of what was then considered avant-garde painting.

It chronicles how the movement's pioneers rebelled against the art establishment­—the official Salon— and situates their work among the many artistic currents and cross-currents of the era.

another friend, Guy Cogeval, president of the Musée d’Orsay.

Cogeval mentioned to Buchanan that his museum soon planned to refurbish and rehang its Impressionist and PostImpressionist galleries. Would San Francisco be interested in borrowing a number of its paintings while renovations were under way? “I leapt across the table at that offer,” Buchanan recalled in a recent conversation. “I stayed in Paris an extra day and immediately began negotiations.”

Buchanan and his team had virtually a free hand to choose what they wanted from the Orsay collection. The FAMSF director even asked for—and received—the Vuillard that usually hangs behind Cogeval’s desk (Cogeval is a noted Vuillard scholar). Of course, Impressionist paintings haven’t exactly led a reclusive life; many of these iconic images have been shown in numerous exhibitions worldwide. But this large number of paintings became available only

Seeing these paintingS will be like taking “a walk through an art history book.”

because of the renovations at Orsay, and it is highly unlikely that so many will ever go on tour together again. Buchanan says that seeing them will be like taking “a walk through an art history book,” starting with the birth in 1874 of what was then considered avant-garde painting and tracing its spectacular evolution.

Visitors arriving with

the idea that they will get an up-close view of works they remember from the Musée d’Orsay—or perhaps only from art history books—may at first wonder who made the mistake: the de Young, by labeling these exhibits “Impressionist”; or themselves, by coming to the wrong museum. This is because the shows—especially “The Birth of Impressionism”—take a novel approach. According to Musée d’Orsay curators Stéphane Guégan and Alice ThomineBerrada, Impressionists are typically presented as though they existed Fran c e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

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The Artist’s Bedroom in Arles by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Starry Night Over the Rhône by Vincent van Gogh (1888)

Impressionists are typically presented as though they existed in an artistic vacuum; the DE young takes a different approach.

in an artistic vacuum. In a catalogue essay, they explain that the de Young shows depart from that convention, providing “an overview of the contentious artistic community that gave rise to the innovations of the ‘New Painting’ (in other words, the Impressionists).”

The title “Birth of Impressionism” says it all, they add. It is “an attempt to recapture the [late-19th-century] period for itself.” Here is “a collective vision of the period, acknowledging a wide-ranging cast of characters.” Which is why the show’s opening work is “La Naissance de Vénus” (“The Birth of Venus”) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, a staunch traditionalist painter of classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the nude female form.

Bouguereau’s painting of Venus standing in a sea shell—a 19thcentury rendition of Botticelli’s famous canvas—was shown in 1879 at the Salon, the annual exhibition organized by the Paris art establishment. It eloquently demonstrates what the group of young 42

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avant-garde artists then known as the “insurgents” was up against.

Their own work was rejected by the Salon as too unconventional— as well it was when compared with such mainstream Salon works as Jules Joseph Lefebvre’s “Vérité,” depicted as a nude holding a mirror, and Elie Delaunay’s “Diane,” both in the San Francisco show.

Guégan and Berrada point out that, inevitably, the Salon painters influenced the Impressionists—if only by giving them an idea of what not to paint. Meanwhile, Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier’s large and somber “Siege of Paris” provides visual background to the era, showing a scene from the Franco-Prussian war, which ushered in the Paris Commune. Also shown are paintings by Gustave Coubet and the socalled Barbizon school, another influence on the Impressionists.

Among the Impressionists, Edouard Manet looms large with 15 paintings, including the most famous barmaid in art history and the charming portrait of his sister-in-law, artist Berthe Morisot. He is presented as a pivotal figure, continuing to feud with the Salon long after other Impressionists had held their own successful show in 1874 and moved on. Also on display are Manet’s famous boy fifer, which the Salon rejected, and his portrait of Emile Zola, which it did not.

Claude Monet is well represented with “Saint-Lazare Station” and “Rue Montorgueil, Paris.” Also included are Edgar Degas’s “Racehorses Before the Stands” and “The Dancing Lesson”; and American expatriate James McNeil Whistler’s “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1”—a work familiarly known as “Whistler’s Mother.”

In the second exhibition, which covers the 1885-1905 period,

Women at the Well by Paul Signac (1892)

Portrait of the Artist with the Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin (1889)

“Van Gogh, Cézanne and Beyond” covers 18851905, a period of great artistic freedom and competition. The official Salon is no longer the only game in town, Impressionism is passé and even its greatest practitioners—Monet, Degas, Renoir—are exploring new directions. Some 125 works by artists as different as Cézanne, Seurat and Bonnard bear witness to this tremendous diversity.

the shoe is on the other foot. The Impressionists have established their presence, and their paintings of nature, portraits of ordinary people and renderings of everyday life vie for attention with the Salon’s lofty themes of history and mythology—images laden with references that many people didn’t understand. But Impressionism continues to evolve, with Pissarro, Cézanne, van Gogh and Gauguin pursuing their experiments with light and color.

Among the world-renowned works in this exhibition are George Seurat’s “The Circus”; Vincent van Gogh’s “Bedroom in Arles,” “Starry Night on the Rhône” and 1887 “Self Portrait”; Paul Gauguin’s “Tahitian Women on the Beach”; Paul Cézanne’s “Still Life with Onions”; and Pierre-August Renoir’s “A Dance in the Country.”

T

he fact that lending and borrowing

such famous paintings still goes on in spite of being expensive, labor intensive, time-consuming—and in this age of international terrorism, more worrisome than ever—shows how exhibition-driven the museum world continues to be. As Earl (Rusty) Powell, director of Washington’s National Gallery of Art, once remarked, “If you can’t buy great works of art, the next best thing is to borrow them.”

Indeed, a museum’s art is its primary asset, and most institutions would just as soon keep their best paintings on the walls at home. In

this particular instance, the Musée d’Orsay had two options: put its masterpieces in storage for the duration of the renovations or take the opportunity to show them off during an international tour.

Of course, the loan system is a two-way street; conventional wisdom holds that museums that don’t have a generous loan policy (not the case with the Musée d’Orsay, which has a reputation as a willing lender) will find the door closed when they themselves go knocking. And although no museum executive will admit it, an unofficial “exchange rate” governs such transactions, with the loan of Monet’s “Waterlilies,” say, qualifying the lender to borrow a Titian at some later date.

This time, however, the cash-strapped Musée d’Orsay decided to put a price tag on the exhibition, with the money going toward the cost of renovations. International venues include Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia, Tokyo’s National Art Center and Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts. San Francisco alone will host both shows.

Buchanan points out that the City by the Bay was a natural for this Gallic art extravaganza. “San Francisco has always been interested in things French,” he says. “And the show speaks to our collection, which has very good French works.” FAMSF’s extensive French holdings—which include dozens of Rodin sculptures—are displayed at the Legion of Honor museum (open in 1924, it is a three-quarter-scale copy of the Musée d’Orsay’s elegant next-door neighbor, the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur). To complement the de Young shows, the Legion will host “Impressionist Paris: City of Light,” a display of prints, drawings and historical photographs Franc e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

43

Afternoon in the Cluny Garden, Paris by Charles Courtney Curran (1889)

The Legion of Honor, the de Young’s sister museum, is hosting “Impressionist Paris: City of Light,” designed to complement the Orsay shows. Prints, drawings, photographs, paintings and illustrated books from its permanent collection will re-create the ambiance of the Impressionist years.

“San Francisco has always been interested in things French, and the show speaks to our collection, which has very good French works.”

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that evoke the Paris in which the Impressionists worked.

Blockbuster art exhibitions tend to create ripples of cultural and social activity, and this Impressionist double-whammy is no exception. In addition to the Legion of Honor show, there will be an opening gala, a fashion show featuring French designers and a series of lectures on relevant art topics. The French-American Cultural Society and the local Alliance Française chapter are joining in with five musical soirées (June 18, July 16, August 20, October 15 and November 19) that will be held on the de Young’s expansive grounds; other events are still in the planning stages.

Remarkably, even this lavish assembly of Impressionist gems does not constitute the Musée d’Orsay’s entire Impressionist collection.

There’s still much more in Paris, including Manet’s “Le Déjeuner sur L’Herbe” and “Olympia” (both are considered too valuable to leave the museum and are on display in temporary spaces during Orsay’s renovations). Indeed, the lasting impression of the dazzling display in San Francisco may well be that the biggest masterpiece of all is not any one painting but rather the impressive white stone f museum that houses them on the Left Bank of the Seine.

“Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay” runs May 22 through Sept. 6. “Van Gogh, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay” is on view Sept. 25, 2010, through Jan. 18, 2011. “Impressionist Paris: City of Light” will be at the Legion of Honor May 22 through Sept. 6. famsf.org

~

Orsay Update

Musée d’Orsay president Guy Cogeval (far left) is overseeing the renovation of the museum’s hugely popular Impressionist galleries.

ABOVE: the galleries as they have been since 1985.

BELOW: Architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte’s vision for 2011.

~ The museum gets a fresh look for its 25th anniversary

“The station is superb and looks more like a palais des beaux-arts,” wrote painter Edouard Detaille of the just completed Gare d’Orsay in 1900. In truth, it was not a particularly perceptive observation: Architect Victor Laloux had been instructed to design a new train station serving central and southwestern France that would blend in with the elegant Musée du Louvre and the Tuileries across the river.

Still, the artist’s comment turned out to be prophetic. The palatial neoclassical building with its two enormous signature clocks would survive a decline in rail travel, several decades as a white elephant and the threat of being torn down before it was ultimately transformed into one of Paris’s most important museums, home to the nation’s cherished patrimony of Impressionist and PostImpressionist paintings.

The ambitious conversion, which encompassed the cavernous train station as well as its once famous luxury hotel, took almost a decade to complete. The Musée d’Orsay opened in 1986, with an impressive 180,000 square feet of display space.

Its permanent collection—drawn from the Jeu de Paume, the Louvre and the Musée National d’Art Moderne— covers the period from 1848 to 1916, years of great richness and texture in French painting with several different

styles developing simultaneously, all in the same city. The idea was for its collection to pick up where the Louvre leaves off and to end where the Centre Pompidou begins.

On the fifth floor, which runs the length of the building, are the great masters of the Impressionist movement. In any given year, more than three million visitors come here to feast their eyes on iconic canvases such as Edouard Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe.” They also take in the jewels of Post-Impressionism—van Goghs, Gauguins—and of Pointillism, the movement led by Georges Seurat.

Not this year though. Last summer, the Impressionist galleries were closed for a major renovation that will also include the Pavillon Amont (the tower on the northeast corner of the museum) and an upper-level café. The rest of the museum remains open with an uninterrupted schedule of special exhibits: “James Ensor,” “Art Nouveau Revival,” “Jean Léon Gérôme”….

“The Musée d’Orsay is aging and has to be redone,” says Guy Cogeval, president of the institution.

More than old, the Musée d’Orsay is somewhat dated, and one important aim of the facelift is to modernize the presentation of its permanent collection. The museum’s naturallight-and-neutral-colored-walls

aesthetic was cutting-edge 23 years ago, but museums now feel that advanced artificial lighting, colored backgrounds and more space between paintings do a more effective job of showing off works on display.

As part of the renovation, transparent false ceilings will limit the natural light, complementing newly installed ambient illumination. In addition, rosewood parquet will replace the stone flooring.

The museum is also a victim of its own popularity, with bottlenecks forming at key points during peak visiting hours. To improve crowd flow, the plan calls for adding new access routes to the main galleries and broadening some passageways.

The architect in charge of the renovation is Jean-Michel Wilmotte, whose prestigious portfolio includes the Richelieu Gallery at the Louvre.

But early on, Cogeval sought the support of Gae Aulenti, the Italian designer who conceived and designed the original museum interiors and who—French media reported—was unhappy at the prospect of colored walls replacing her white ones. Cogeval says that Aulenti came around, however, and has since given her approval to the renovation project.

Architectural plans indicate that the walls in the Impressionist galleries will be a restful avocado. The Pavillon Amont, which is being overhauled by

designer Richard Peduzzi, will hang the museum’s oversized French 19th-century Academic paintings against deep-mauve walls.

Another aspect of the project involves remodeling and enlarging the fifth-floor Café de l’Horloge. Brazilian brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana—whimsical designers whose own works are featured in a number of major museums, including MoMA—have dreamed up an oceanographic décor, with seats shaped like sea shells and Jules Verne-like murals of undersea creatures.

To help defray the cost of the project (€11.4 million after taxes, or about $15.2 million), the Musée d’Orsay put together two traveling shows of its best Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and offered them to museums overseas for a fee of €2 million ($2.6 million).

By the time the Musée d’Orsay’s renovated galleries reopen in 2011, its dazzling masterpieces will have traveled to venues in Australia, Japan and the United States. “It’s better to have works go on tour than sit in storage,” says Cogeval. “And I can tell you that everywhere they go, these exhibitions will be historic Caption by tkkt ktk knows tk tktk that they events; everyone tkt ktkt ktkbe tkktktk ktk tkk will never repeated.” tk ktk ktkkt kt at tktthe t t Musée d’Orsay Renovations are expected to be completed by March 2011. musee-orsay.fr Franc e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

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photo Credit is here

Opposite: Votive candles light the way for guests arriving at the American Friends of the Louvre’s fundraiser cum rock concert.

THIS PAGE: A-listers stroll through the Hall of Mirrors during the Bal Marie Antoinette, the culmination of a week of festivities organized by the American Friends of Versailles.

Friending

French

Culture

For decades, Americans have helped preserve and enrich France’s cultural gems, often through participation in “American Friends” organizations.

On the following pages, Amy Serafin takes a look at the history of this transatlantic largesse and profiles several of the American groups that are enthusiastically embracing French museums, monuments and performing arts.

When André Malraux established the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959, he wrote that its role was “to make major works by humanity, and primarily from France, accessible to the greatest possible number of French people; to ensure the largest audience for our cultural heritage; and to support the creation of works of art and spirit that enrich it.”

But much has changed in half a century, and Malraux’s lofty goals are now beyond the source for the arts. It is the opposite of the government’s ability to meet them. It is simply impossible for the State to foot the bill for the French model.

In recent decades, “American Friends” entirety of French culture, past and present. Historic churches and châteaux need ongoing renovations in the face of constant assaults ranging from weather to visitors’ breath and vibrations associations have sprung up alongside their from passing trucks. Museums require innovative programming and costly art acquisitions to French cousins. No one seems to know remain world-class. There are digital archives to create, extensions to build, dance companies to exactly how many there are or even when support. France’s cultural institutions are doing their best to raise money with initiatives such as the first one appeared, but most sources mounting blockbuster exhibitions, opening trendy boutiques and restaurants, and renting out think the concept probably goes back to the early 1970s. (For years, the U.S. Emspace for special events. They are also increasingly relying on help from their friends.

Many receive support from a French network of nonprofit associations d’amis—there is a bassy in Paris has kept an informal listing federation of 290 friends’ groups for museums alone. The biggest, the Société des Amis du Louvre, of these groups but intends to track them was created in 1897, counts more than 60,000 members, has an annual €3 million budget and has more closely on its new Web site, Ameriacquired masterpieces such as Ingres’s Le Bain Turc, which it donated to the museum in 1911. can Center France.) One thing is certain, The American model of giving has however: Friending France’s cultural orlong served as inspiration for Les amis. As ganizations is more popular than ever. At Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s, least half a dozen American Friends associations have been founded since 2001, and as this article “The Americans make associations to goes to press, there are reports that a brand new one is forming for the Musée d’Orsay. give entertainments, to found seminarAs Hal Witt, the director of the 25-year-old American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet, ies, to build inns, to construct churches, says, “It seems that every cultural organization in the world has noticed the effectiveness of to diffuse books, to send missionaries to American Friends groups and has created some sort of organization on this model, or would the antipodes …Wherever at the head of like to.” These friends offer a range of support, from acquiring works of art to planting gardens, some new undertaking you see the gov- refurbishing buildings, funding tours, translating databases, even sending American singers and ernment in France, or a man of rank in artisans to perfect their skills in France.

England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.” This is A me r ican F r ien d s a r e but the latest chapter in a story that goes back at least as far still the case today; in the near absence as the summer of 1923. At the time, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was traveling through France and of U.S. government support for culture, was struck by the sorry state of such architectural treasures as Versailles, the Reims Cathedral and philanthropy is the number-one revenue Fontainebleau. France was still reeling from World War I, and Rockefeller knew the government 48

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below: American Friends organcould not possibly raise enough money to rehabilitate these historic monuments. So during the izations offer donors a range next 13 years, he donated approximately $3 million to the three sites (most went to Versailles) for of exclusive benefits, including structural repairs, new roofing and other direly needed improvements. Today, Versailles has not extraordinary access to some of France’s most spectacular one but two groups of American donors helping to preserve and protect its old stones. historical sites and gala events Over the years, American patronage has also been expressed through foundations (Florence such as this ball at Versailles.

Gould, Terra, Mona Bismarck) and associations (French Heritage Society, Friends of French Art). And while Americans have been instrumental in such prestigious renovations as MontSaint-Michel and the Arc de Triomphe, their generosity has not been limited to high-profile projects; they have also helped save countless small churches and obscure monuments in tiny honest: What Texas belle could resist putting on a fabulous ball gown and kicking villages as well as other beloved if modest historic structures.

The U.S. tax code encourages this generosity by granting a deduction for donors to nonprofit up her heels in the same palace where organizations under section 501(c)(3). This is undoubtedly the main reason that American Friends French kings once partied? associations are based on U.S. soil. (The French law of 1901 governing associations also offers deListings of French-American philanthropic ductions to individual donors who pay their taxes in France, but it was not until 2003 that France organizations, including American Friends, will started offering a comparable enticement to businesses. The impact has been impressive: Between soon be available on American Center France 2002 and 2008, French corporate patronage for culture and other causes reportedly jumped from (americancenterfrance.org), a Web site recently launched by the U.S. Embassy in Paris. €350 million to €2.5 billion, with 39 percent going to culture.)

While Americans are historically the leading donors, French culture has friends in other places, too. The Centre Pompidou, for example, counts on help from North Americans, South Americans and Japanese. The Château de Chantilly, with its famous 18th-century stables and racecourse, recently received a €35 million grant from billionaire and racehorse owner Aga Khan, who lives nearby. And the Louvre’s new Islamic art wing will be largely financed by Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, who has contributed €17 million to the project—the largest donation ever received by the museum.

It seems that when Malraux wanted to ensure that people around the world could partake of France’s cultural assets, he was on to something—you don’t have to be French to feel a certain ownership of the country’s magnificent patrimony. The most exquisitely French of monuments, Versailles, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Catharine Hamilton, president of the American Friends of Versailles, explains, “France has given us so much in terms of beauty, an understanding of history and inspiration on so many levels.

This commitment allows me—and those of my friends who feel the same way—an “It seems that every opportunity to give back.” cultural organization in the world It is a win-win situation. Châteaux has noticed the effectiveness in need of repairs and museums trying of American Friends groups to acquire art in a competitive market are grateful for American help. In turn, and has created some sort Americans are happy to provide, out of of organization on this model, a combination of generosity, a passion or would like to.” for culture or history, a love of France and a fancy for such rarefied perks as private international art tours. And let’s be Franc e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

49

ocking Out the

Mona Lisa

Opposite, below: Houston’s Becca

Cason Thrash organized the 2008 Liaisons au Louvre, a three-day extravaganza that raised funds to restore the museum’s decorative arts gallery. The event featured a rock concert under I.M. Pei’s Pyramid.

to enable American donors to make tax-deductible contributions, and he convinced publishing magnate Christopher Forbes, a lover of the Napoleon III period, to sign on as the organization’s founding chairman. Forbes recruited other board members, and the AFL is now an impressive operation with three full-time staffers at its New York office and another in Paris.

No overseas museum attracts more Americans than the Louvre; each year, they represent one million of its 8.5 million visitors. But when asked why an American philanthropist would support the Louvre rather than, say, the Seattle Art Museum, Sue Devine, AFL’s executive director, explains that it’s generally not an either-or proposition. “They support their local museums in addition to The American Friends recognizing the contributions of some of world’s greatest museums. The Louvre has ongoing exhibition programs with U.S. museums, and it lends incredible things from its collection. It has a lot of the Louvre of exposure, and many people have discovered the Louvre at their own local institutions.”

Indeed, AFL members are generally the sort who can give to more than one institution. The organization focuses on two membership levels (though entry-level categories also exist): $10,000 You probably think the Louvre AND for the Chairman’s Circle and $25,000 for Duran Duran have nothing in common. the International Council. Devine says And they probably didn’t, at least not until that they have about 30 members at the the spring of 2008, when the British pop first level and 18 at the second, a numgroup performed under the Pyramid durber that has remained stable right through ing the first fundraiser (or, for that matter, the recession. “We’ve been quite forturock concert) ever to take place within the nate. People seem to have a lot of loyalty.” museum’s hallowed walls. Princess CaroThey are people like Forbes, billionaire line of Monaco and Bianca Jagger were money manager Charles Brandes and among the 272 glitterati who paid up to John Thrash, a Houston energy company $10,000 to watch the band and eat veal CEO whose wife, Becca Cason Thrash, medallions among the Roman sculptures. organized the Liaisons au Louvre party.

Hosted by the American Friends of the The AFL plans a trip to Paris at least Louvre (AFL), the three-day weekend, dubbed Liaisons au Louvre, grossed $2.7 million for the once a year, visiting the museum when restoration of the 18th-century decorative arts galleries. The AFL was formed in 2002 at the it is closed to the public. International urging of Henri Loyrette, the museum’s particularly forward-thinking director, who is not shy Council members have traveled with about asking foreigners for money, mounting exhibitions overseas or even opening a satellite Henri Loyrette to other destinations, from museum in Abu Dhabi—all in an effort to meet the museum’s new budget realities. The Louvre Beijing, where they saw an exhibition on became semi-autonomous in 1992, and a number of new programs have increased its overall Napoleon, to Mexico City, where they visbudget from less than €100 million in 2001 to more than €200 million today. At the same time, ited private art collections and museums. government funding has remained relatively constant, so that while the French State provided 71 This May they are going to Berlin.

Devine says the Louvre can learn from percent of the museum’s budget in 2003, it covered only 54 percent in 2008.

Loyrette had noticed that other international museums had established U.S.-based nonprofits Americans’ immense fundraising experience. “Since our country was founded, our educational and cultural institutions have Friends at work been supported through philanthropy. We To date, AFL has Louvre, making its Mike Kelley, Richard Database of American have taught them the importance of develpledged to raise collections more acSerra and Cy Twombly, Art to catalogue works more than $9 million cessible and helping whose permanent ceilby U.S. artists in French oping personal relationships to cultivate for various projects. with renovations. It ing painting will be unpublic collections. The the interest of donors, and then when they In addition to indihas notably supported veiled this spring). association has also become involved, how to steward those revidual memberships, collaborations with Thanks to AFL, the secured an Annenberg lationships and keep them close.” the group counts on American museums, museum’s major galFoundation grant of Four hundred Louvre lovers will have corporate members, a including a three-year leries now have wall €1 million to develop Young Patron’s Circle labels in English, Spanexhibition program educational tools for another opportunity to get close next and foundation grants at the High Museum ish and French; the young visitors and has November 14-16 at the second Liaisons for special projects. online collections daof Art in Atlanta, and passed the halfway au Louvre. It is open to anyone who can tabase has been transThe funds cover the has funded exhibimark of its $4 million afford a ticket—though after all the press various aspects of the tions of contemporary lated into English; and pledge to help restore coverage of the last fête, Devine expects AFL’s mission: raising American artists at the the Louvre is expandthe 18th-century decoawareness of the Louvre (for example, ing its La Fayette rative arts galleries. them to sell out fast. aflouvre.org Franc e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

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Love

For the

of Louis

Americans have long played an important role in preserving Versailles’s heritage. Right, opposite: AFV galas such as the Bal Marie Antoinette are an important source of funding—not to mention a great chance to dress up and enjoy the splendor of the Salle d’Hercule.

Below: The Bassin des Trois Fontaines, restored by the AFV.

ame r ica an d V e r sailles sha r e a long lavish fundraising events, with proceeds history, one that goes back to Benjamin Franklin, going toward the restoration project curwho traveled there to enlist France’s help during rently under way. Contributors over the the American Revolution. Another famous visitor years have included Buzz Aldrin, Nancy was John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who between 1923 and Henry Kissinger, Patty Hearst, Susan and 1926 donated millions to restore the château’s Gutfreund, Frederick Smith (of FedEx), crumbling façades and put a new roof on the Hall John H. Bryan (of Sara Lee), plus forof Mirrors. As in Rockefeller’s time, the needs of mer ambassadors to France such as Craig The American Friends this vast, sumptuous château and gardens extend Roberts Stapleton and Felix Rohatyn. well beyond the capacities of the French govern- The French board members have equally of Versailles ment: Versailles’s annual €100 million budget is impressive friends—connections that now financed by revenues generated by the château have helped AFV offer packages that and private patronage as well as by State subsidies. include such exclusive perks as private More Americans visit Versailles than any other nationality—approximately two million a year. receptions at the Elysée Palace.

Texas-born Catharine Hamilton first saw it as a 17-year-old, when her mother took her to EuSince the group’s inception, it has dorope on a graduation tour. As she recalls, “I was overwhelmed by its beauty, its magnificence.” nated more than $5 million to Versailles.

She never dreamed it would loom so large in her future. Three decades later, she was asked to It inaugurated the refurbished Trois Fonjoin the board of Les Amis de Versailles, a French group founded in 1907 to help maintain and taines in 2004, and is currently raising funds to restore the Pavillon Frais. Derefurbish the château.

Six years after that, the French organization’s president, the Viscount Olivier de Rohan, took signed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, widely Hamilton and her husband on a walk through the gardens to see the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines. considered the finest architect of the 18th The grove had been designed by André Le Nôtre between 1677 and 1679 as a deceptively simple century, the pavilion was built during the feature of water and greenery, consisting of three descending terraces with pools and fountains in reign of Louis XV as a private dining room different shapes. It was the only bosquet that Louis XIV helped design, and at the end of his reign, where the Queen and ladies of the court he often visited it in his wheelchair. When Hamilton first saw it, it was little more than a barren supped on spring and summer days. It was field, and Rohan expressed his wish that it could be rebuilt. She recalls, “I knew it was going to made of stone with intricate trelliswork, be a huge stretch to be able to re-create that, and I thought about it for a couple of days. I called sculpted boiseries and arched galleries on Olivier back and said we’d try. And that’s the way it all started.” either side adorned with spherical topiWhen Hamilton returned to the States, aries. Water basins in an enclosed garden were decorated with mosaic tiles. Demolshe began reaching out to her well-placed ished under Napoleon, it was slated for acquaintances, and in 1998 the American Friends of Versailles (AFV) was estabrenovation in 1980, but due to a lack of funds, only the stone structure was rebuilt, lished. The group’s goals are to support and it has since fallen into disrepair. renovation projects, to enhance FrenchIn all, the project will cost about $2 American friendship and to raise awaremillion; AFV has already raised more than ness that this historic monument needs to half. This June, Hamilton and friends be maintained. “People think of Versailles hope to come up with the rest when they as so magnificent and so opulent, but it’s host a fundraising ball at the château, Le very fragile,” says Hamilton. The underGrand Bal des Topiaires. Louis XV once taking is not just about celebrating kings and queens, she adds, but about preserv- threw a party by the same name—and came dressed as a sculpted yew bush (that evening, he met ing the stunning artistic heritage they left his future mistress, later known as Madame de Pompadour). Tickets, which cost from $5,000 to behind—the architecture, gardens, tapes- $25,000, allow access to some or all of 15 events planned over six days—a Chopin concert at the Polish Embassy, a cruise on the Seine, dinner at Paris City Hall, another dinner at the extraorditries, furniture, clocks and so on.

AFV’s board is composed of French nary Hôtel Lassay, a picnic on the grounds of Versailles and, of course, the Friday night ball.

It is a huge production, and Hamilton won’t sleep soundly until it’s over and the funds and Americans, but the organization does not have members in the traditional have come in. Then again, she knows her work is never really finished: “They renovated the sense—anyone may send in a donation of Hall of Mirrors, and by the time they redo everything else, it will have to be done again.” any amount. In addition, the AFV hosts americanfriendsofversailles.org

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Transatlantic Curating

Pompidou Foundation members enjoy private visits to art collections and trips with curators. Below: Chairman Robert M. Rubin and executive director Scott Stover.

Opposite, clockwise from top: The Foundation marked its U.S. launch with the show “French Modern Sources” at Art Basel Miami Beach (2006); an untitled work

by Jorge Pardo (2008), donated to the museum; a members’ dinner at the famous Maison de Verre, Rubin’s Paris residence.

foundation also makes suggestions. The artists are usually, though not always, American. In fact, the first significant gift following the foundation’s rebirth was “Tropical House,” a rare 1950 prototype of a prefabricated residence designed by French architect Jean Prouvé and donated by Rubin.

The Centre Pompidou In 2007, the foundation created an acquisitions committee that works closely with Camille Morineau, the Centre Pompidou’s curator of contemporary collections. “It’s a true dialogue,” Foundation she says, adding that she loves the Americans’ directness and rapid decision-making. Morineau organized the current major exhibition of female artists, “elles@centrepompidou,” for which the foundation bought an installation by the pioneering feminist Hannah Wilke. Subsequently, In 1977, when the Musée National Wilke’s sister, Marsie Scharlatt, donated two other pieces by the late artist to the foundation. d’Art Moderne took up residence in the Since 2005, the foundation has received 57 works valued at more than $13 million and has groundbreaking digs of the new Centre acquired 21 more worth more than $4 million. Most notable was a 2008 gift from collectors Pompidou, Americans threw their support Arne and Milly Glimcher, who donated a portrait of Arne himself by Chuck Close. That was behind it and created the Georges Pom- a banner year during which the Foundation also bought 13 works by American artists such as pidou Art and Culture Foundation. The Robert Gober (whose name was on the wish list) and Jorge Pardo.

As for the perks, they are tailored to appeal to serious art aficionados. The annual program foundation supplied the museum with works by major American artists including includes a long weekend somewhere in the United States, a Paris Weekend every June and an adBrice Marden, Dan Flavin, Barnett New- ditional annual trip somewhere else in the world—past destinations have been Japan, Brazil and man, Cy Twombly and Donald Judd. For Mexico. Foundation members visit artists’ two decades, its leader was Dominique studios, works of contemporary architecde Menil, a French-American heiress and ture, private homes and collections. They art collector. Her interest waned, howtravel with various Centre Pompidou ever, when she opened her own museum curators, permitting a deeper familiarity in Houston, and after she passed away in with their choices and vision.

1997, the foundation lay dormant.

As is the case with Louvre benefactors, Like other cultural institutions, the Americans giving works of art or money to Centre Pompidou has had to find dithe Centre Pompidou Foundation tend to verse sources of funding in the face of spread their wealth around. As Stover says, increasing costs, stagnating government they nearly always give works to major financing and an art market that has gone American museums too. But, he adds, the through the roof. In 2004, Bruno Racine, then-president of the institution, reached out to Scott Centre Pompidou collection is “so imporStover, an American investment banker and respected art collector who had lived most of his life tant, and the exhibits are of such signifiin France. A lover of contemporary art, Stover happily walked away from the banking world to cance, that donors want the work of artists head up and reorganize the foundation. In 2006, after seeing an exhibition at the Centre Pompi- they love to be in it.” Another factor, he dou called “Los Angeles 1955-1985,” he decided to locate the group in L.A. The exhibit showed says, is that U.S. museums often want how this West Coast city became, as he says, the “center of artistic creation in the United States people to give whole collections, while today” (while New York is home to the market). “It was a revelation to me. In discussing where “we are happy to get one good work.” we were going to base the foundation in the U.S., it seemed clear: Why don’t we do something centrepompidoufoundation.org more typical of the Centre Pompidou and go where there is a concentration of creativity?”

Stover renamed the group the Centre Pompidou Foundation and gathered together a top-notch roster of America’s art collectors and patrons as trustees, including former financier Robert M. Rubin as chairman, film producer Tony Ganz, collector Judith Pillsbury and philanIn 2007, the foundation thropist and art preservationist Suzanne Deal Booth. There are some 50 members, each paying created an acquisitions $20,000 in annual dues in addition to helping with acquisitions and other initiatives. When committee that works describing the foundation’s appeal, Stover explains, “We are supporting this fantastic instituclosely with Camille Motion. We are promoting its specific curatorial vision. What we offer people is the possibility of rineau, the Pompidou’s participating in some way in that outstanding curatorial leadership.” curator of contemporary People donate either art or money, though it is generally easier to give a major work of art than collections. “It’s a true to raise funds to pay for one. The Centre Pompidou has provided an evolving wish list of artists dialogue,” she says. they would like to add to their collection (Roni Horn, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman), and the

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Pas de

Deux

The AFPOB got its start bringing performers from the French Opera Ballet to the United States; now it also helps send Americans to France. Clockwise from opposite page: The company performs “La Bayadère” (19921993) at the Palais Garnier; dancers present an homage to Jerome Robbins; Jason Bridges, a young American tenor awarded an AFPOB scholarship to train in Paris, sings at the group’s 25th anniversary dinner.

last November, Ashley Bouder and Gonzalo

Garcia, guest artists from the New York City ballet, danced George Balanchine’s “Jewels” with the Paris The group came into Opera Ballet at the Palais Garnier. The following being thanks to Rudolf day, American tenor Thomas Moser performed in Nureyev, formerly the opera “Salomé” at the Bastille. A week and a artistic director of the Paris half later, France came to the U.S. when Paris OpThe American Friends Ballet, who was planning era Ballet étoiles Aurélie Dupont and Mathias Heya U.S. tour following of the Paris Opera Ballet mann danced in the New York City Ballet’s winter an invitation from gala performance at Lincoln Center. Another young American tenor, Jason Bridges, sang during a dinthe Metropolitan Opera. ner at the French Consulate, showing off the results of three years of training at the French Opera’s Atelier Lyrique. All this back and forth took place to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the American Friends of the Paris Opera & Ballet (AFPOB), benefits from this cultural exchange.”

Each year, AFPOB commits to underone of the oldest surviving organizations of its type in France.

Incorporated in 1984, the group came into being thanks to Rudolf Nureyev, formerly artistic writing certain projects, then looks to indirector of the Paris Ballet, who was planning a U.S. tour in 1986 following an invitation from dividuals, foundations and corporations the Metropolitan Opera. “He realized the Met’s fee would never cover the expenses of bring- to help it meet its responsibilities. About ing in 150 dancers to perform lavish full-length Nureyev ballets,” recalls Hal Witt, director of 100 people and entities support the group AFPOB since 1986 and its only full-time in any given year, with five permanent staff member. So Nureyev, along with the funds (similar to ongoing endowments, Paris Opera director and a board member, named in honor of specific donors) and contacted David Rockefeller, who in turn basic individual membership starting at recommended a New York lawyer to cre$1,000. Among the big-name trustees are Lee Radziwill, investment banker ate the nonprofit AFPOB. Michel David-Weill and Gregory AnThe group raised money for the tour nenberg Weingarten of the Annenberg with a series of special events in New Foundation. “People contribute out of York and Washington. “It went so well, a variety of interests—because they are in terms of critical and public reception Francophiles, have an affinity for Paris, of the company and fundraising, that or are interested in ballet or opera and the Paris Opera Ballet was invited back feel that the Paris Opera and the Paris in ’87 and ’88,” says Witt. In 1989, the collaboration expanded to include opera.

Opera Ballet are some of the best comAnd then it began to work in the oppo- panies in the world,” says Witt. Donors receive benefits—invitations to trips, black tie dinsite direction, sending American artists ners, tours of private homes and art collections—that become increasingly exclusive as the to Paris, among them Jerome Robbins, donated amount grows.

Twyla Tharp and Robert Wilson. ReGiven the historic gap between French and American fundraising experience, securing these cently, AFPOB contributed to the stag- benefits can be a challenge. This was evident in AFPOB’s cameo appearance in Frederick Wiseing of Peter Sellars’s “Tristan and Isolde” man’s documentary La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet. Released last October, the film contained at the Bastille, with a video backdrop by a scene in which Hal Witt and Marina de Brantes, then-chairman of AFPOB, are meeting with artist Bill Viola. In July 2012, the French Brigitte Lefèvre, the company’s director. They ask if their biggest donors can sit in on a ballet ballet company will be back on tour in rehearsal and are surprised at her initial reluctance. the United States. “It’s important for the “We were discussing the New York City Ballet engagement and the fundraising we needed company’s reputation and recognition to do to fulfill our pledge of more than $1 million,” recalls Witt. “Marina and I were pitchthat it be seen outside its own country,” ing a number of perks that any American fundraiser or cultural organization would take for Witt explains. “At the same time, audi- granted.” As it turned out, says Witt, no one had ever had this kind of access to the Palais Garences in America can see a company they nier. After some negotiations, AFPOB donors were ultimately granted this historic privilege. don’t often have the opportunity to see “They were able to see tutus being made, costumes being dyed and even part of a rehearsal,” he without traveling to Paris. Everybody adds. “In all, it lent incredible insight into what goes on behind the scenes.” afpob.org Franc e • sp ri n g 2 0 1 0

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Honoring A

Duke’s

Vision

The AFC’s mission is to protect and refurbish Chantilly’s château, gardens and art collections. Below: The group is raising funds to restore the charming Ile d’Amour, a 19th-century gazebo with a statue of Eros. opposite: An aerial view of the magnificent château and its grounds.

organization like the Institut de France do for a place like this? They needed help, it was obvious.”

When Nancel’s father, Roger Burgess, retired after a career in communications, he and his son-in-law thought of starting an “American Friends” association for Chantilly. Burgess lived The American Friends in Nashville but had often visited his daughter’s family in Chantilly, and he was willing to do the paperwork necessary to set up a 501(c)(3). A group of their Tennessee friends agreed to of Chantilly throw their support behind the endeavor, and the American Friends of Chantilly was born in 2003, with the goals of helping to restore and preserve the château’s art and encouraging Americans to visit.

A favorite local anecdote recounts It is, as Nancel points out, a “grassroots” operation, staffed by volunteers who donate time that when Richard Nixon went on an of- late at night and on weekends. They have 11 board members in Nashville, Washington D.C. ficial visit to the Château de Chantilly in and France, as well as corporate sponsors and approximately 200 or so contributing members, 1968, he asked his staff, “Why have I been who donate $40 and up. Members receive complimentary admission for a year, along with the taken to Versailles seven times and never chance to join AFC-sponsored tours of the domain and take part in visits to châteaux, musehere?” This delightful historical landmark ums and private homes. So far, the organization has brought in some €15,000 each year.

Nancel acknowledges that while much appreciated, AFC’s contributions do not come close may be only 25 miles from Paris, but Americans know little more about it toto meeting the château’s needs. She was day than they did 40 years ago. therefore delighted when, in 2005, ChanThe château and its 19,300-acre dotilly received a major promise from anmain date back to the Middle Ages. other source: the billionaire and racehorse In the late 17th century, the Prince de owner Aga Khan. He lives nearby and deCondé asked André Le Nôtre, landscape cided to create La Fondation pour la Sauvegarde et le Développement du Domaine architect of Versailles and Fontainebleau, de Chantilly, donating €35 million, to design the gardens. The château itwhich will be matched by the State. The self houses the Musée Condé, France’s money will be used to restore the château, second-largest collection of pre-1850 paintings after the Louvre, with works gardens and art collections. The Institut

by Poussin, Ingres, Delacroix and others. de France has turned management of the Chantilly is also the country’s equestrian château over to the Foundation for a 20capital, with extraordinary 18th-century year period, and Nancel’s husband now stables and a racecourse that hosts the Prix de Diane and the Prix du Jockey-Club. works for the new organization.

In 1830, the Duc d’Aumale, son of King Louis-Philippe, inherited Chantilly at the age of Meanwhile, the AFC is becoming eight. He later had the château rebuilt, since it had been destroyed during the Revolution, and he increasingly ambitious and hopes to inkept his magnificent art, book and manuscript collection here. The duke died in 1897 and left his crease its fundraising tenfold. They have property and art collection to the Institut de France, requesting that it be open to the public. two major projects in mind: One is a Near the main château is a smaller structure, the Château d’Enghien, built as guest quarters in colossal sculpted fountain in the stables, 1760. This is where Candice Nancel, an American from Nashville, recently lived for several years where the Prince de Condé’s 250 horses with her husband, Frédéric, a Frenchman who was then working for the Institut de France. At used to drink. It is badly in need of refirst, Nancel resisted the idea of moving out of Paris, but she grew to love her unusual living ar- pair, to the tune of $150,000. The AFC rangement, overlooking the château and grounds. She also came to know its serious needs, from has given itself two years to come up with the crumbling foundations to silt build-up in the canal to art begging for restoration. “When the money, and will direct its fundraising you get that close to something, you want to care for it,” she says. “How much could a public efforts at horse lovers.

The other is a 19th-century wood trellis gazebo with a statue of Eros called L’Ile AFC CONTRIBUTIONS d’Amour. The AFC plans to refurbish the dilapidated statue, the gazebo and the fleur“Chantilly’s art for the Duc d’Aumale French kings and their

by Hamilton Hazlehurst collection has moand his foresight that courts. The group also (now an AFC honorary de-lis tiled floor. They are counting on the tivated us even more we want to preserve paid for the first French board member), and goodwill of couples in love, such as the than its architecture,” it.” So far, the AFC has translation of Gardens has digitized a comDuc de Vendôme, who held his wedding says AFC president helped with the resof Illusion: The Genius plete catalogue of the reception at Chantilly last spring. NonCandice Nancel. “It is toration of more than of André Le Nôtre, a library’s priceless hisroyals are also welcome. afchantilly.org out of sheer respect 300 Clouet portraits of book written in 1980 torical manuscripts.

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Friends Deed

in

Blérancourt is the world’s only museum devoted to French-American cooperation. This page: Anne Morgan at a May Day celebration for local children. opposite, clockwise from top: AFB founder Baroness d’AnglejanChatillon at a gala dinner with guest Anthony Pell; one of the gardens created by the AFB; the château’s restored gatehouse pavilions.

T he sto ry of B l é r ancou rt has often Virginia magnolias. The renowned landbeen marked by the presence of strong American scape architect Madison Cox designed the women. Located 70 miles from Paris, just north- Summer garden using American species; east of Compiègne, the Château de Blérancourt was funding was provided by Pierre Bergé. built for the Duc de Gesvres by Salomon de Brosse, Another landscape star, Mark Rudkin, dethe same architect who designed Paris’s Palais du signed the Spring, Fall and Winter gardens The American Friends Luxembourg. Completed in 1619, the château was (and donated quite a bit of money as well); of Blérancourt sacked during the French and Spanish wars of 1652, he is also the talent behind the Memorial then during the Revolution, it was appropriated by Garden, whose poppies, cosmos and cornthe State and the main building was destroyed. flowers form a red, white and blue carpet.

In 1917, Anne Morgan, daughter of American In the early years, the AFB also raised $1 banker J.P. Morgan, took up residence in one of the gatehouse pavilions, using it as a base for million to help refurbish and expand one her wartime humanitarian efforts aiding French civilians and, later, rebuilding villages with the of the museum’s two main pavilions. Rehelp of American female volunteers. She subsequently bought the château, restored the second named the Florence Gould pavilion, it was gatehouse pavilion and turned it into the world’s only museum devoted to French-American co- finished in 1989; architects Yves Lion and operation, with an emphasis on French support during the American Revolution and American Alan Levitt earned the prestigious Equerre participation in World War I. In 1931, it became a French national museum. d’Argent award for their design.

Under Rosenberg, the museum’s collecIn the early 1980s, another American woman living in France, the Baronne d’AnglejanChatillon (a.k.a. “didi”) hosted a dinner party. Guest Pierre Rosenberg asked the baroness if she tions continued to expand, with additions of had ever heard of Blérancourt, where he had recently been appointed curator. She hadn’t. “He works by Americans in France and French said, ‘I need someone to help me, please go out and see it,’” she recalls. “I said, ‘Pierre, I’m already artists in the United States. By the 1990s, working, I have a child at home.’ But he begged and begged, so I did. On the way, I got com- it was clear that it would be necessary to pletely lost in the forest of Compiègne, but when I arrived, I had an aesthetic shock. I thought to enlarge the château once more to accommyself, this can one day become a little jewel of a museum, and being an American, this will be modate the new acquisitions. Construcmy cadeau. I thought the project would last only a year or two. And here we are.” tion started in 2006 but hit an unexpected Shortly thereafter, Eugénie Anglès, the American wife of a French ambassador, returned to Paris delay the following summer when workers from Portugal. The two women had been discovered underground archaeological vesfriends since they were girls at Foxcroft tiges. The ruins will be incorporated into the boarding school in Virginia, and Anglès final building plan, a contemporary design agreed to sign on as vice president of the again drawn up by Lion and Levitt, with a American Friends of Blérancourt. The paprojected reopening date in 2012. The estiperwork took two years, but in 1985, the mated budget for this project is $11 million, AFB was finally established as a charitable of which the AFB pledged $2.1 million (the organization with a head office in New York original budget was $4.5 million, but delays City and a satellite in Paris. and revamping the design have more than One of the AFB’s first projects was four doubled the costs). gardens, one for each season, and an arAt the same time, the museum’s philoboretum complete with maple trees and sophical approach has been rethought by a committee of French and American historians, who have proposed that the collections (paintings, sculptures, objects and memorabilia) be divided into eight time periods, each reflecting both French and American points of view—obviously, not always the same.

The AFB counts between 300 and 400 members; some give every year, others are less conIn 1917, Anne Morgan, stant.

The group’s efforts include a biannual newsletter with an appeal for donations, an annual daughter of American gala dinner in the United States and prestigious tours to different destinations in Europe and the banker J.P. Morgan, took U.S., including an upcoming jaunt this spring to Santa Fe. “We are a very close-knit group,” says up residence in one of the Anglès, who has served as president since 1989. “I never had friends in Detroit or Albuquerque, gatehouse pavilions, using and now I do.” She and the baroness plan trips around food, wine, gardens or—most popular— it as a base for her wartime private visits of their friends’ extraordinary homes. Their work has paid off: They have already humanitarian efforts. raised the money they pledged for the expansion. americanfriendsofblerancourt.org MORE FRIENDS: Profiles of additional American Friends organizations are featured on francemagazine.org.

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Calendrier French Cultural Events in North America

April-June 2010

• Matisse’s iconoclastic “Flowers and Ceramic Plate” (1913) is one of the canvases on view at the Art Institute of Chicago.

season highlights The Art Institute of Chicago’s M atisse : R adical I nvention , 1913–1917 focuses on a period of experimentation bookended by the artist’s return to Paris from Morocco in 1913 and his departure for Nice in 1917. Drawing on cutting-edge imaging and other recent research into such works as the monumental “Bathers by a River,” the show seeks no less than to redefine existing perceptions of Matisse, his working methods and his oeuvre.

Currently on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, T he M ourners : M edieval T omb S culptures from the C ourt of B urgundy will travel to venues across the United States over the next two years, offering American audiences an unprecedented opportunity to see 40 15th-century statuettes, each a poignant expression of grief. This diminutive yet highly realistic funeral cortège was executed for the tomb of Duke John the Fearless and his wife, an elaborate monument 25 years in the making.

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© 2010 Succ es s i o n H . M at i s s e / Ar t i s t s R i g h t s S o c i e t y ( A R S ) , N e w Yo r k ; R es e a rc h L i br a ry, T h e G e t t y R es e a rc h I n s t i t u t e , Lo s A n g e l es , Ca l i fo r n i a ( 20 0 3 . PR . 3 3 ) ; F r a n ç o i s L au g i n i e / C o l l ec t i o n F r ac C e n t r e

exhibits Milwaukee and Chicago SPATIAL CITY

In 1958, the Hungarian-born French architect and urban planner Yona Friedman published a manifesto in favor of “mobile architecture” that could be superimposed onto existing cityscapes and modified to suit the needs of its users. Utilizing Friedman’s concepts as a jumping-off point, Spatial City: An Architecture of Idealism showcases the work of contemporary artists—most based in France—who explore the effects of utopian thinking, including the cynicism engendered by failed social experiments. Through April 18 at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee’s Institute of Visual Arts (Inova), www4.uwm.edu/psoa/inova, and May 23 through Aug. 8 at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center, hydeparkart.org.

Los Angeles LATE RENOIR

Although identified with Impressionism, Renoir traveled far afield of that movement in the final decades of his life, drawing inspiration from Titian, Rubens and other Old Masters. Renoir in the 20th Century showcases 80 paintings, sculptures and drawings from this lesser known period of his career, when he continued his prolific output despite the crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis.

Illustrating how Renoir’s marriage of tradition and innovation influenced the next generation of artists, the show incorporates pieces by Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard and others. Through May 9 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; lacma.org.

New York MEDIEVAL TOMB SCULPTURES

The tomb of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (and nephew of John, Duke of Berry; see “The Art of Illumination,” below), and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, is one of the prize pieces of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Surrounding the base of this lavish work of funerary art are 40 16-inch-high mourners sculpted in alabaster, each one unique. While the museum undergoes renovations, these statuettes will advance from supporting to starring role as the subject of The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, which kicks off a seven-city U.S. tour this spring. Through May 23 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

inspiration both for painters and for practitioners of the burgeoning art of photography. Exploring the dynamic between these two forms of creative expression, The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850-1874 combines vintage prints by Le Gray, Le Secq and others with oils, watercolors and pastels by such masters as Monet, Manet and Courbet. Through May 23 at the Dallas Museum of Art; dallasmuseumofart.org.

Baltimore CÉZANNE AND AMERICAN MODERNISM

The first show to delve deeply into the subject, Cézanne and American Modernism opens with a selection of the paintings and works on paper through which American artists at home and abroad first became acquainted with the French master, along with archival materials documenting the landmark exhibitions involved. What follows is a testament to Cézanne’s profound influence—stylistic, philosophical and thematic—on American artists from 1907 to 1930, with pieces by Marsden Hartley, Man Ray, Arshile Gorky and some 30 others. Through May 23 at the Baltimore Museum of Art; artbma.org.

Washington, DC SÈVRES PORCELAIN

The Sèvres porcelain factory has sustained both its relevance and its reputation for excellence for two and a half centuries by astutely combining the old and the new, eschewing modern methods of production yet keeping step with stylistic movements such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco. In the first U.S. retrospective of its kind, Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain, 1750–2000 brings together some 90 pieces ranging

from an elaborately staged 18th-century dessert service to biomorphic ceramics designed by Jean Arp. Through May 30 at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens; hillwoodmuseum.org.

San Francisco RESPONDING TO MEIN KAMPF

In 2005, the French artist Linda Ellia discovered a uniquely liberating creative outlet: removing pages from Hitler’s Mein Kampf and covering them with words and images that expressed the horror and rage they inspired in her. She then invited other people—artists and nonartists alike, friends and perfect strangers from around the world—to share this cathartic experience. Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf presents the 600 pages eventually returned to her, which have been reproduced in a book with a foreword by Holocaust survivor and former EU president Simone Veil.

Through June 8 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum; thecjm.org.

New York THE ART OF ILLUMINATION

The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry offers a unique opportunity to view one of the finest examples of French medieval manuscript illumination in its unbound form, all of its exquisite details fully accessible to the eye. Commissioned in the early 15th century by one of that era’s greatest patrons of the arts, the book of hours was recently dismantled to allow for restoration and production of a facsimile. The show includes all 172 of the book’s images, executed by three of Europe’s finest illustrators when they were still in their teens. Through June 13 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; metmuseum.org.

San Francisco SINGING THE NET

In Singing the Net, contemporary artists Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin explore notions of frontiers, movement and identity by viewing Web navigation as a form of travel. Browsing histories offer up stories of these journeys, which are then interpreted both visually and through song. May 1 through June 13 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; ybca.org.

New York CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI

The monumental No Man’s Land, a newly commissioned work by Christian Boltanski, will transform Park Avenue Armory’s 55,000-square-foot Drill Hall into a meditation on the haphazardness of human existence. In a landscape formed by thousands of pieces of used clothing, a five-story crane will claw at a 40-foot-high “mountain,” then drop garments into the surrounding “sea,” where huge conveyor belts will ferry them back to the heap. May 12 through June 14 at Park Avenue Armory; armoryonpark.org.

Chicago MATISSE

Dallas THE LENS OF IMPRESSIONISM

Thanks in part to the expansion of the railway, the fishing villages of Normandy metamorphosed into fashionable resorts during the 19th century, providing ample

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A detail from “Triumphal Entry into Babylon,” a collaboration between Charles Le Brun and Gérard Audran; the work is displayed at the Getty.

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Yona Friedman’s “Ville Spatiale” (1959-1960) inspired an exhibit of the same name; it travels from Milwaukee to Chicago this spring.

Presenting 120 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917 marshals new historical, technical and scientific research to shed light on a little understood period of the artist’s career. Unlike the colorful, decorative works for which Matisse is best known, these pieces are generally sober F r a n c e • S PR I N G 2 010

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North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; April 29 at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; May 1 at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis, MN; and May 2 at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL. For further details, visit myspace.com/lesprimitifsdufutur.

in palette and spare in composition. By focusing on the artistic processes behind them, the show reveals their pivotal role in his creative evolution. Through June 20 at the Art Institute of Chicago; artic.edu.

New York CARTIER-BRESSON

Boston TOULOUSE-LAUTREC’S PARIS

The graphic arts flourished in fin-de-siècle Paris as prosperity spawned advertising and artists explored new means of exercising their livelihood and reaching a broader public. No figure epitomized the era more than Toulouse-Lautrec, who elevated the poster to an art form with his genius for caricature, fluid line and bold use of color. A selection of his vivid images of the denizens of Montmartre’s night spots—himself often included—is on view in Café and Cabaret: Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris, which also features works by such contemporaries as Bonnard, Picasso and Vuillard. Through Aug. 8 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; mfa.org.

Washington,DC FROM IMPRESSIONISM

Boston THE GRAND DUCHESS OF GEROLSTEIN

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Pages from Mein Kampf were deconstructed by Philippe Marchand and Sylvie Charrier for Linda Ellia’s Notre Combat project (2007).

Arman, Nouveau Réalisme advocated the “poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality.” Through works of art and archival films and photographs, Leaps into the Void: Documents of Nouveau Réalist Performance reconstructs some of the movement’s ephemeral projects, notably Yves Klein’s famous jump from a Paris rooftop, from which the show takes its name. Through Aug. 8 at the Menil Collection; menil.org.

San Francisco MASTERPIECES FROM THE MUSÉE D’ORSAY

While undergoing renovations, the Musée d'Orsay is loaning its treasures to the de Young Museum, which is hosting Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. Its sister museum, the Legion of Honor, is holding a complementary exhibition, Impressionist Paris: City of Light (see related story, pp. 46-61).

May 22 through Sept. 6; famsf.org.

TO MODERNISM

From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection showcases 84 French and American masterworks from a 1962 bequest that positioned the National Gallery of Art as a treasury of late-19th- and early 20th-century French art. The exhibition offers insight into the art of collecting art by examining how so many outstanding pieces came into the possession of Wall Street mogul Dale and his artist and critic wife. Highlights include Renoir’s “A Girl with a Watering Can,” Picasso’s “A Family of Saltimbanques” and two of Monet’s views of the Rouen Cathedral. Through July 31, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art; nga.gov.

Houston NEW REALISM

An avant-garde movement founded in 1960 by the critic Pierre Restany and a group of artists including Yves Klein and

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Los Angeles MONUMENTAL PRINTS

The court painter, designer and administrative mastermind Charles Le Brun dominated the visual arts in France during the latter half of the 17th century. Among the thousands of works produced under his supervision was a small series of largescale engravings and etchings of some of his own grandest paintings and tapestry designs. Measuring up to three feet high by four and a half feet wide, these images were painstakingly cobbled together from sheets printed on multiple copper plates. Printing the Grand Manner: Charles Le Brun and Monumental Prints in the Age of Louis XIV examines both the form and the function—selfaggrandizing, propagandistic but also educational—of these little-known works, whose subject matter includes the exploits of Alexander the Great and the Emperor

Constantine. May 18 through Oct. 17 at the Getty Center; getty.edu.

Opera Boston presents La GrandeDuchesse de Gérolstein, which became an international hit after its 1867 premiere in Paris. Offenbach’s satirical take on militarism and political machinations features a trumped-up war won through the overwhelming use of wine and a capricious title character who promotes a handsome soldier to the rank of general only to plot to assassinate him when he doesn’t return her affections. Starring Stephanie Blythe.

April 30, May 2 and May 4 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre; operaboston.org.

New York

performing arts Los Angeles FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

Now in its 14th year, City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) screens dozens of the latest motion pictures from France, many in their U.S., international or even world premiere. The program combines shorts with features, box office hits with art house pictures and directorial debuts with new offerings from veteran filmmakers. April 19 through 25 at the Directors Guild Theater Complex.

Lafayette FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE LOUISIANE

The 24th annual Festival International de Louisiane celebrates southern Louisiana’s ties to the French-speaking world with more than 100 free performances by musical artists from Europe, Africa, Canada, the Caribbean and the Americas.

April 21 through 25 in downtown Lafayette, LA; festivalinternational.com.

U.S. Tour LES PRIMITIFS DU FUTUR

Founded in 1986 by guitarist Dominique Cravic and cult comic book artist Robert Crumb (who will not be performing), Les Primitifs du Futur put a contemporary and sometimes humorous spin on musette, the music that instantly evokes Paris. The genre takes its name from a small, bagpipe-like instrument favored by the working-class Auvergnats who came to the French capital in the 1800s, but is most closely associated with the accordion, a contribution of Italian immigrants. April 24 and 25 at the

PASSION WORLD

In Kurt Elling & Richard Galliano: Passion World, the Grammy Award–winning jazz vocalist and virtuoso French accordionist team up to perform a selection of famous love songs from around the globe. May 14 and 15 in The Allen Room at Lincoln Center; jalc.org.

Charleston CHARPENTIER

Although accomplished in secular genres as well, the prolific Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier is most highly regarded for his sacred music. This year’s Spoleto Festival presents the Westminster Choir performing one of his nine versions of Litanies de la Vierge. Also on the program is a selection of the pieces he wrote specifically for male voices.

June 2 at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul; spoletousa.org.

Washington,DC FRENCH EARLY MUSIC

Subtitled “La Musique Magnifique: Early Music Masterpieces from France,” the fifth edition of the Washington Early Music Festival celebrates the music of French composers from the Middle Ages to the Baroque with a month’s worth of concerts, lectures and workshops. The festival opens with Opera Lafayette’s semi-staged production of the opérabuffon “Sancho Pança,” by the 18thcentury composer (and famous chess master) François-André Danican Philidor. May 24 through June 26 at various venues. earlymusicdc.org.

—Tracy Kendrick For a regularly updated listing of cultural events, go to francemagazine.org.

Ph i l i ppe M a rc h a n d & Sy lv i e C h a rr i e r , C o ur t e sy o f t h e C o n t e mp o r a ry J e w i s h M u s eum

Known for his ability to distill a fleeting and often complex reality into a single arresting image, photographer Henri CartierBresson revealed both the creative and documentary power of the medium that made him famous. The first major U.S. retrospective of his work in more than three decades, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century brings together about 300 prints dating from 1929 to 1989. Some famous, others never before seen by the public, the images range from street scenes to portraits to photo-essays on China’s “Great Leap Forward.” April 11 through June 28 at the Museum of Modern Art; moma.org.

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Photo credits

Interview Charlotte Vignon pp. 20-23: courtesy of the frick collection.

Rétrospective Yves Klein pp. 24-25: charles wilp / ©2010 artists rights

tel. 888.575.2678

www.thefrenchneedle.com

society ( ars ) new york /adagp paris ; image courtesy yves klein archives ; pp.

26-27: yves klein archives /©2010 artists rights society (ars ) new york /adagp paris ; pp.28-29: shunk- kender / ©2010 artists rights society ( ars ) new york / adagp paris / © roy lichtenstein foundation, yves klein archives / ©2010 artists rights society ( ars ) new york /adagp paris.

Metz Goes Modern pp. 30-31: arte factory ; pp. 32-33: jean - christophe verhaegen /afp /getty images, arte factory, ©shigeru ban architects ; pp. 34-35: ©succession picasso paris 2010/centre pompidou /mnam-cci /philippe migeat/dist. rmn, ©collection centre pompidou /philippe migeat/dist. rmn, ©succession miró / adagp/©collection centre pompidou /philippe migeat/dist. rmn, adagp/©collection centre pompidou /georges meguerditchian /dist. rmn ; pp. 36-37: bertrand guay/ afp /getty images, didier boy de la tour, comité régional du tourisme /metz, grand hôtel, la citadelle, le magasin aux vivres, ©maurice rougemont.

San Francisco’s Année d’Orsay pp. 38-43: © rmn / musée d’orsay / hervé lewandowski ; p. 44: fine arts museums of san francisco, bequest of constance coleman richardson ; p. 45: ©musée d’orsay/sophie boegly, ©wilmotte associés.

Friending French Culture pp. 46-47: jeffrey hirsch / newyorksocialdiary. com , nadine froger photography ; p. 49: © 2007 quentin bacon ; pp. 50-51: ©stephane cardinale /people avenue /corbis, ©scott stulberg /corbis ; pp. 52-53: ©2007 quentin bacon, j.-m. manaï, jeffrey hirsch /newyorksocialdiary.com ; pp.

54-55: courtesy of the centre pompidou foundation ; pp. 56-57: jacques moatti, sébastien mathé /opéra national de paris, t. cook; pp. 58-59: ©m. savart, jeanlouis aubert ; pp. 60-61: courtesy of american friends of blérancourt, inc., ©jacques guillard /scope.

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Troubled Waters

by MICHEL FAURE

Nature doesn’t interfere too much with life

that broke apart as it crashed into bridge pillars, and thousands of dead here in Paris, and that’s fine with those of us who call it home. We may rats. People standing on the wooden footbridges built over the flooded say we love nature, but in fact, we merely put up with it, as long as it streets smiled for the many photographers who were snapping pictures stays where it belongs. And where it belongs is en province, that place they later sold as postcards. Amateur painters found poetry in the we visit from time to time where there are fields and villages and even chaotic calm of the submerged city. And from the heights of Belleville people—kind of surprising when you think that they, too, could be and Ménilmontant, workers descended to see the posh neighborhoods living in Paris. For us, living in the capital is the height of good fortune. under water and laughed at the bourgeois in their fancy hats being carWe adore the city’s gray sky, gray zinc roofs and grayish Seine, which ried across flooded streets by their servants. But there was also solidarity flows along peacefully in the silvery light. and heroism, as social distinctions faded in the shared calamity. The This year, though, we’re keeping an eye on the river. We’ve got- poet Guillaume Apollinaire was one of hundreds who took refuge at ten used to thinking of it as a well-behaved municipal waterway, but the Eglise Saint-Sulpice along with laborers and duchesses. history reminds us that the Seine is The suburbs, which felt abana force of nature—a long and not doned, were hit even harder than always quiet river. It has flooded the Paris. Looters were lynched, and 200,000 people sought refuge in the city so often that Paris’s coat of arms capital, where relief efforts were betis a boat, and its motto is fluctuat ter organized. Then the waters began nec mergitur: “She is tossed by the to recede. The streets were cleared of waves but does not sink.” Yet 100 years ago, in January 1910, there mud and the cellars were disinfected. were a few days when Parisians One-quarter of the capital’s 80,000 buildings were damaged. The cost of wondered if their city was indeed the flooding was assessed at 400 milgoing to go under. lion gold francs, more than a billion The flood of January 1910 was a catastrophe that lives on in coleuros in today’s currency. But only lective memory. American histoone human life was lost. rian Jeffrey H. Jackson tells the In a review of Jackson’s book story in Paris Under Water, recently published in The New York Times, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Caroline Weber, a professor of When strong rains and snow fell • A view of Notre-Dame shows flood waters engulfing the top of a lampost.

French literature at Columbia Unionto ground already saturated by versity, rightly suggests that the very months of rainfall, the Seine and its tributaries began to rise, and real Parisian fraternité portrayed in the postcards was inflated into between January 21 and 28, flood waters invaded central Paris and a convenient myth. The country had suffered both a humiliating many of the city’s suburbs. At that time, the French capital boasted the defeat by Prussia, which had occupied Paris and annexed Alsace and most modern amenities. It truly was the City of Light, with electricity, Lorraine, and the scandal of the Dreyfus Affair, which exposed the telephones and an extraordinary urban transit system. There were 10 anti-Semitism of the conservatives. The image of renewed unity in the train stations, 11 tram companies and a Métro with six lines already face of disaster—deputies making their way to the National Assembly in service and another four under construction. by boat, President Armand Fallières perched on sandbags in CharenBut nature is indifferent to progress. The river didn’t just burst its ton, scruffy soldiers saving an elegant woman from drowning—was banks, it surged through tunnels and rushed into sewers and quar- no doubt welcome. ries. Water covered squares, inundated cellars and rumbled under Sadly, this national euphoria in the face of a crisis prefigured the apartment buildings. The darkened city suddenly resembled Venice, singing young men in the railway stations who would go off to war with makeshift gondoliers guiding small boats with long poles. They against Germany just four years later. They would think of the battles rescued stranded passers-by, evacuated hospitals, and provided food to come as a “partie de campagne,” unaware that most of them would and transportation. The masterpieces in the Louvre were protected. die or be maimed, and that their world was about to change forever.

The animals at the Jardin des Plantes were saved too, except for the Indeed, the Belle Epoque—with its illuminated cafés, its bustling boulevards, its cabarets and cancan girls, its insouciance and its faith giraffe, which succumbed to pneumonia.

While the situation was dire, it also had a certain entertainment in progress and industry—was about to end. By the time the war was value. Photographs taken at the time show crowds of gawkers who came over eight years later, 1.4 million French men, or 10 percent of the f to stare at the torrential waters that carried off casks of wine, furniture male work force, would be dead.

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©ROGER-VIOLLET

Temps Modernes