SHARING WITH ME

I wonder how many people would contest a Rembrandt painting? There are so many stories, anecdotes about Rembrandt that after a while, the common mortal like me can get a little lost. The exhibition « Rembrandt Intime » has been on since the 16th of September at the Jaquemart-André which is not my favorite place for a « blockbuster exhibition ». The rooms are really small and once there are a couple fo groups going through, you are crushed to pieces. I got there at a reasonable hour this morning, no queues. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I came up against once inside was impossible. Push, push, so I waited… The first of my conferences this year there had been an extremely interesting one on this exhibition. So many of the Rembrandt pictures are contested today that it’s nice to know that 99% of his etchings are his…and those I have always loved most. The first time I discovered them was with my Mother sometime in the 80’s. I couldn’t get over the simplicity and yet ...

Some of my friends who had been along to see the exhibition « American Painting in the 1930’s » had not been impressed. I had chosen to see the Mexico exhibition , before going to the Orangerie mainly because there were a lot of paintings done in Mexico at the same period.   I was most impressed by the American period . Apart from the crowds which I was not expecting, so quite a bit of dodging heads had to be done, there is no doubt about it , t his period was dramatic for the Americans. Within a space of a decade, artists now considered to be among the greatest names of the 20th Century art rose to prominenece in the U.S.A. The financia l crash o f 19 29 surely fostered a desire for new and intense forms of expression, national pride and a desire to cling onto a faith in the future or rebel agai nst the excesses of a period eroded with disccrimination and in equality.  Here is a short video in English recorded by the Chicago Museum curat...

It didn’t take too much pushing to get me out on that cold crisp but sunny day. It was the choice that was so hard. There are so many exhibitions on in Paris that I want to see. This time of course it would be those closing in early January. Two. Oscar Wilde - « Insolence Incarnate » (I think that I would have preferred « Born to be Wild » …and Mexico 1900-1950. No way will I  comment on the Oscar Wilde show. This is the first major exhibition to be held in Paris. The exhibition retraces the life and work of this ardent francophile and speaker of perfect French through more than 200 remarkable exhibits, some never shown before: manuscripts, photographs, drawings, caricatures and personal effects; as well as paintings borrowed not only from Ireland and England, but also from the United States, Canada and Italy, from French institutions including the Musée d’Orsay and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and from various private collections. Something more ...