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Showing posts from August, 2024

'We are here' Street Art at the Petit Palais

Seth: Le petit Prince The Petit Palais has a free exhibition of street art showing at the moment until the 17th November 2024. It is partly mixed in with the permanent collection and partly grouped in the North hall, all on the ground floor. Of course street art, by definition, is not normally seen in a gallery, but, following the initiative of the Gallery Itinérrances in 2022, such art has for the first time entered the realm of the Paris museums. Most of the artists, now mainly in their 40s and 50s are no longer hiding their identities. Their work is also to be seen in huge murals in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Seth's style is instantly recognisable. He loves to use the image of a child and rainbow colours. He suggests a world of the imagination. The child often has his head in the clouds. Is this the artist himself? Or his avatar..? Visitors to Paris in the autumn of 2023 may have seen Seth's temporary installation outside the Eastern end of the Louvre: Not in present ...

Matisse: The Red Studio at the Louis Vuitton Foundation

Cyclamen  1911 This light oil painting of a cyclamen, which seems to have been done rapidly by Henri Matisse, is one of the 11 works depicted in a still life painting of his studio in 1911. "The Red Studio" is at present on exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the western edge of Paris. This striking work is normally to be seen in the MOMA in New York. It last came to France in 1993 for a Matisse exhibition at the Pompidou Centre: L'Atelier rouge (The Red Studio) 1911 It is a precious record of the state of Matisse's studio in 1911. The Cyclamen painting is situated towards the top right. The studio was not all Venetian red as the picture implies- the red was painted over impulsively at a later stage by Matisse. When asked why, the painter said he didn't know... Gertrude Stein called it Matisse's most musical piece. Matisse's main patron- Russian textile manufacturer Sergei Shchukin- declined to purchase the work, asking Matisse to paint him pictu...