Paris Arts Club

  Femmes aux bas blancs (Woman with white stockings) 1924 Musée des Beaux Arts, Nancy The artist Suzanne Valadon was fairly well known during her day, but her life story and association with several famous painters as model or lover has taken prominence nowadays and her art is a little neglected. The Pompidou exhibition displays various aspects of her work, from portraits, still lifes and landscapes to numerous nudes. Valadon's paintings reflect the influence of Cézanne and Gauguin, but her signature firm lines show how important drawing was to her. Her pastel self portrait aged eighteen is 'fauvist' before the term was invented: Self portrait, 1883 pencil, charcoal and pastel on paper  Centre Pompidou Valadon brings out bright colour contrasts in the skin tones of her nudes: Les Baigneuses (The bathers) 1923 Musée d'Arts de Nantes She used as her artist's name 'Suzanne' - the nickname given to her by Toulouse Lautrec. He jokingly referred to her as Suzanne ...

Roberto Matta: Le poėte (A poet we know) 1945  Centre Pompidou Matta's brutal figure pointing a revolver at the viewer opens this centenary show of Surrealism. The harsh yellow background shows through his body as if it is his navel. The reference by the young Chilean artist to 'a poet we know', is to André Breton.  The exhibition radiates around the actual manuscript of André Breton's 1924 'Manifesto of Surrealism', lent by the Bibliothėque Nationale, :   One hundred years later, we can affirm that the Surrealist movement has been very long-lasting- its influence is still around. The highpoint lasted four decades from the 1920s to the 1960s. New generations of artists added to or developed the movement in diverse ways.  The exhibition has a very jocular entrance way - visitors walk through a monster's mouth: Strange sounds and murmurings accompany the visitor down a dark corridor with flickering portraits of the main protagonists- Breton, Ernst, Dali et al:...

  Intėrieur (Interior) 1880 Private Collection The Caillebotte family lived comfortably at 31 rue Miromesnil in the fashionable Opéra quarter. In his paintings Gustave gives us a view of 19th century middle class interiors. Gustave, René and Martial junior were three brothers. After the death of Martial, the father, in 1874, life went on, albeit with a rather funereal atmosphere. In the painting below, Madame is being served while René tucks into his lunch; a glass of wine awaits Gustave who is the observer of the scene. Thus Caillebotte gives us an insight  into the life of the Parisian bourgeoisie:  After the death of their parents and the middle brother René, Gustave and Martial inherited a considerable fortune. Gustave could acquire the paintings he loved: Impressionists. He has been remembered in France primarily as the legator of some of the finest Impressionist paintings in the Musée d'Orsay. This latest exhibition brings his own talent to the fore. One of the star...