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Showing posts from August, 2021

Signac and Pointillism

Signac  Rainbow, Venice  1905 It may seem a little late to post my review of the Paul Signac exhibition which took place at the Musée Jacquemart André in July 2021. However the exhibition contained many works in private hands so it is an opportunity to 'air' them here. Furthermore, Pointillist works are to be seen in many museums worldwide. In Paris there are plenty on view in the Musée d'Orsay, where the late founding director was Signac's grand daughter (art historian Françoise Cachin). Pointillist paintings provoke admiration for their singular shimmering quality- ideal for rendering water scenes- or occasionally criticism for being  tedious 'dotty' paintings.  The Pointillist circle of artists developed from Seurat to Signac and Pissarro to several Northern artists whose work we may discover here. Belgium became the secondary foyer of the avant- garde style. A prime example is Théo Van Rysselberghe, one of the leading Belgian artists. Born in Gand and educat...

DIVAS Exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe

         The golden age of arab music and cinema (1930 -70) produced some spectacular women performers; they are celebrated   in the current exhibition at the Arab Institute in Paris. For anyone who doesn’t know this building, situated on the left bank, South East of Notre Dame cathedral, it is quite a striking sight. Designed by architect Jean Nouvel and opened in 1987, its President is ex-minister of Culture: Jack Lang. The outside façade reproduces an arab ‘moucharabiya’, a lattice-work partition from behind which women would traditionally observe the world. The women featured in the “Divas” exhibition not only held centre stage, but astonished the world. They came from different backgrounds and origins: Christian, Jewish, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, but had one thing in common: star quality. Of the most famous four, Oum Kalthoum is a legend. When she died in 1975, aged approximately 77, she was...