The variety and quality of the temporary exhibitions at the Musée Bourdelle in Montparnasse are always impressive, as they look not just at the work of the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle himself but also what was happening around him in other … Read More
The king of France lost his head in 1793, and with him were lost all but one of the crowns that had sat on the heads of his Ancien Régime predecessors. What is left of the crown jewels of France … Read More
If you have not yet bought a ticket for the Leonardo da Vinci show at the Louvre, you will probably miss out on it. If you have, you are in for a treat. Although Leonardo is so familiar to us … Read More
There are only a couple of weeks left to see an unusual and worthwhile show at Paris’s Petit Palais: “Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929): Sculptor of the Neapolitan Soul” (through January 26). Gemito, an important 19th-century artist who introduced realism to Italian … Read More
From photos and films of him, I’ve always had an image of Alberto Giacometti as a gentle, mild-mannered man, but the current exhibition at the Institut Giacometti, “Giacometti/Sade: Cruel Objects of Desire,” reveals a darker side of the sculptor famed … Read More
A fascinating exhibition called “Deadline” at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris a decade ago presented works by 13 artists made in the run-up to their deaths, mostly when they were ill or disabled. One of the … Read More
At the press opening of the Musée Rodin‘s exhibition of the work of Barbara Hepworth (1903-75), not one but two journalists, one French and the other Canadian, told me they had never heard of the great modernist British sculptor before … Read More
Photographer Peter Hujar (1934-87) lived in the best of times and the worst of times for a gay man. The heady days of the Gay Liberation movement, which took off after the Stonewall riots of 1969, were followed only a … Read More
The first time I saw an exhibition of El Greco’s paintings, I thought they were profoundly weird and incomprehensible, but over time I have grown to love them and seek them out in the museums I visit. Now we can … Read More
One of Paris’s oft-forgotten treasures is the Sèvres National Ceramics Museum and Manufactory, where precious Sèvres porcelain is still made and a collection of centuries’ worth of ceramics from around the world is on show. To inaugurate its new Savoir-faire … Read More
