Paris - Art and History | France Revisited

August Macke, Young Girl with Fish in a Glass Bowl, 1914 (c) Von der Heyde-Museum Wuppertal

A Brilliant Obsession: Color at the Marmottan Monet, Black at the Pompidou

By Gary Lee Kraut

The Marmottan Monet Museum is one of the undervisited glories of the museumscape of Paris, no doubt due to its location toward the western edge of the city. The museum, formerly the home of Paul Marmottan, originally paid full homage to Marmottan’s passion for collecting art, furniture, and bronzes from the Napoleonic/Empire era of the early 19th century. But following a donation in 1957, the museum began to assert itself as an important recipient for Impressionist, near-Impressionist, and post-Impressionists works.


The Dutch Golden Age: A History Lesson Through Art You might wonder why I haven’t chosen a painting by Rembrandt or Vermeer to illustrate an article about an exhibit entitled The Dutch Golden Age, From Rembrandt to Vermeer, showing at the Pinachothèque de Paris until Feb. 7, 2010. But to do so would be as misleading as that second half of the title of the show itself. Read More
Mother and Son, Together and Apart, at the Pinacotheque de Paris "It makes no sense to compare," Marc Restellini, director of the Pinacothèque de Paris in Paris told me when I asked him why Maurice Utrillo was the famous painter of Montmarte while his mother Suzanne Valadon has generally been forgotten. Restellini's exhibit, showing at the Pinacotheque until September 15, places the mother-son paintings side-by-side. Viewing it raise for me the question as to why one painter was once considered "better" than the other. It’s also interesting to see how two people from the same family saw the world differently. Read More
Benjamin Franklin, a Philadelphian Who Lived the American Dream in Paris, Then Went Home Shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin accepted a mission from the Continental Congress to seeking an alliance with France and eventually recognition of the independence of the United States of American from the British Empire. In October 1776, Franklin set off on the 6-week transatlantic crossing to join Silas Deane on the American mission to obtain favor from the Court of France. Read More
Van Dyck Portraits at the Jacquemart-André Museum Paris has pulled out all the stops to examine how Picasso looked at and dialogued with the greats that preceded him: Picasso and the Masters at the Grand Palais, Picasso/Delacroix at the Louvre, Picasso/Manet at the Orsay. Heady stuff that gives clues into what Picasso was thinking. But what were his subjects thinking? Typically nothing since his subjects in these cases were mostly earlier paintings, and in any their humanity has largely been erased. Read More
Defining Expatriates: American Women Between the World Wars When does an American stop being a long-term resident of Paris and become an expatriate? The answer depends on both the subject and the onlooker, on whether one or the other sees expatriatism as a form of self-banishment/withdrawal, a statement of allegiance (residential, political, cultural, sentimental, etc.), or a natural transfer of adoption/affection/family. Read More
Of Artists and Collectors: Six Museums for the Return Traveler The time is long gone when France could create a great museum by simply beheading the king, gathering his royal art collection in the old palace of the Louvre, and declaring it open to the public, as the leaders of the French Revolution did in 1793. Read More