Note: The chef at Sauvage at the time this was written, Jonathan Schweizer, can now be found at the Café Les Deux Gares in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. There’s nothing particularly wild about the restaurant Sauvage, but it is rather difficult … Read More
How did Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) become the superstar sculptor whose spindly statues are instantly recognizable by just about everyone? The exhibition “Giacometti: From Tradition to Avant-Garde” at Paris’s Musée Maillol helps to answer the question with an ambitious show tracing … Read More
Why, you might ask, is an exhibition titled “Debussy at the Beach” being held at the National Museum of Archaeology in the precincts of the château at Saint-Germain-en-Laye? Perhaps in order to present a close examination of the beach pebbles … Read More
Rome has been pillaged, stripped of many of its precious paintings by Caravaggio! Whodunit? The Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, to the great joy of Parisians and visitors to the city, who for a time can have the thrill of seeing no … Read More
THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED In the front of Ô Divin, a new restaurant in an out-of-the-way corner of Paris’s 17th arrondissement, is a small deli selling fine wine, cheese, sausages and more. Beyond it is a pretty dining room … Read More
I took a liking to Franz West (1947-2012) as soon as I entered the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and saw this quote by him: “I’ve always thought that the ideal is to do nothing and still be able to … Read More
Fearing monumental gimmickry, I was wary about visiting Paris’s much-lauded new blockbuster attraction, the Atelier des Lumières, billed as a “digital museum.” Why is a screen needed to look at great art; why not just look at the art itself? … Read More
Thematic exhibitions don’t teach visitors much about an artist or an art movement, but they are often amusing and/or thought-provoking. “L’Envol” (“Flight”) is both as it explores humankind’s eternal dream of flight. This is the last exhibition to be held … Read More
Don’t be surprised, as I was, if you don’t see any Impressionist paintings until the very end of the exhibition “Impressionists in London.” The title is misleading – it would more accurate to use its subtitle, “French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904,” … Read More
The exhibition “The Water Lilies: American Abstract Painting and the Last Monet” at the Musée de l’Orangerie is an uplifting look at the influence of Monet’s late work – which progressively veered toward pure abstraction – on American abstract painting. … Read More
