To sign up for classes please  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  or call + 33 (0) 686 58 98 09 

 

 

Paris Art Studies – November - December 2019

 

Paris Temporary Exhibitions 

 

Thursday 7 November 10:40 am – 12:15 pm

Mondrian as Figurative Painter

Visit to the exhibition at the Musée Marmottan (until26 Jan. 2020) with Chris Boïcos.

 

Some sixty outstanding paintings from the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague that Piet Mondrian himself chose in 1920 for his biggest collector, Salomon B. Slijper, are being presented in this exclusive Parisian show which reveals a lesser-known facet of the artist’s career. Landscapes, portraits and flower paintings marked by Impressionism, Luminism, Fauvism and Symbolism are contrasted to the later Cubist and Neo-Plasticist compositions, showing Mondrian to be one of the finest colorists of his day and one of the great 20th-century masters of figurative painting. An invitation to discover the figurative visual and conceptual roots of the art of one of the greatest abstract painters of the first half of the 20th century.

 

Place: Meet by entrance of Musée Marmottan - 2, rue Louis Boilly 75016
Métro: La Muette (line 9).
Time: 10:25 for 10:40 am entry. Please bring 10 € in exact change for the exhibition ticket (8,50 group price if 20 participants plus 1,5 euros for the earphones). Please note this event is limited to 20 participants only. 

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for the series, please below)

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Tuesday 12 November and Thursday 14 November 10:30 am – 12 noon

Leonardo da Vinci

Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Musée du Louvre (24 Oct.2019 – 24 Feb. 2020) with Chris Boïcos.

 

The year 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinciin France, an anniversary of particular importance to the Louvre, which holds the largest collection in the worldof da Vinci’s paintings, as well as 22 drawings. The museum has seized this opportunity to gather as many of the artist’s paintings as possible around the five core works in its collections: The Virgin of the Rocks, La Belle Ferronnière, the Mona Lisa, the Saint John the Baptist, and the Saint Anne. The objective is to place them alongside a wide array of drawings as well as a small but significant series of paintings and sculptures from the master’s circle. This unprecedented retrospectiveof da Vinci’s painting career will illustrate how he placed the outmost importance on painting in his multifarious career, and how his  investigation of the world, which he referred to as “the science of painting,” sought nothing less than to bring painting as close to life as possible. The exhibition is the culmination of more than ten years of work, including new scientific examinations of the Louvre’s paintings, and the conservation treatment of three of them, allowing for better understanding of da Vinci’s artistic practice and pictorial technique. New biographical elements have also emerged through the exhaustive reexamination of archival documents. The exhibition will paint the portrait of a man and an artist of extraordinary freedom, originality and inventiveness. 

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for the series, please below)

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Thursday 21 November 10:30 am – 12 noon

Felix Fénéon- Modern Times from Seurat to Matisse

Slide lecture the exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie (16 Oct.2019 – 27 Jan. 2020) with Chris Boïcos.

 

The Musée de l’Orangerie has organized the first exhibition ever paying tribute to Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), a crucial figure in the artistic world of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Anarchist, art critic, editor, gallery director and collector, Fénéon espoused an open-minded vision of creation at a time when art was on the verge of the shift to modernity.The exhibition focuses on Fénéon’s remarkable collectionand evokes his investigation of Art from Remote Places an essaypublished in 1920, questioning the status of primitive sculptures and objects.A promoter of Neo-Impressionism, Fénéon passionately advocated the works of his Pointillist friends, Seuratand Signac. He was also an active member of the famous La Revue Blanchecircle of the Art Nouveauperiod before pledging his support to the Fauvists and Futurists in 1906, and particularly in 1912 when he organized the first Futurist exhibitionin Paris as artistic director of the Bernheim-Jeune gallery.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for the series, please below)

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Thursday 28 November 10:30 am – 12 noon

Luca Giordano (1634-1705) – The Triumph of Neapolitan Painting

Slide lecture the exhibition at the Petit Palais (14 Nov.2019 – 23 Feb. 2020) with Chris Boïcos.

 

This is the first-ever exhibition in France of the work of the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano, one of the most brilliant Baroque painters of the 17^thcentury.  90 paintings and drawings are on show, exceptional loans from the Capodimonte Museum and the most important churches in Naples as well as numerous other European museums including the Prado in Madrid. Trained in the studio of Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), the great Spanish master who moved to Naples, Giordano assimilated the dramatic shadows of the his master’s style which he combined, however, with the more flamboyant Baroque manner of Rubens and Pietro Cortona which he discovered during his stay in Rome in 1653. He was quickly recognized across Italy as the ultimate Baroque master of his generation and received through his career more than 5000 commissions for oil paintings and frescos which led his contemporaries to call him Luca fa presto(Luca-paint-fast)! His immense Neapolitan altarpieces are striking for their complex drama and promote the major figures of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, notably San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples, and protector from the plague which killed half the inhabitants of the city in 1656. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, and the horrifying Apollo and Marsyasare only three of the major masterpieces shown for the first time in Paris in this remarkable exhibition.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

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Tuesday 3 December and Thursday 5 December 10:30 am – 12 noon 

El Greco Retrospective

Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Grand Palais (16 Oct.2019 – 10 Feb. 2020) with Chris Boïcos.

 

This retrospective is the first major exhibition in France ever to be dedicated to El Greco. Born in Crete in 1541, Domenico Theotokopoulos, was trained in the Byzantine tradition of icon painting before refining his art in Venice and then Rome. However, it was in Spain that his art flourished, firmly taking root there after he moved to Toledo in 1577. The artist brought Titian’s color, Tintoretto’s audacity, Michelangelo’s heroic style and Byzantine mysticism to his new country. This unique combination gave El Greco (who died four years after Caravaggio) a unique place in the history of painting, as the last grand master of Mannerism and the first great painter of the Spanish Golden Age. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school.His tortuously elongated and supremely expressive figures as well as his fantastic color schemes puzzled many of his contemporaries and were essentially re-discovered and admired by the Modern school in the early 1900s. His art is now regarded as a forerunner to Expressionism and Cubism whereas the freedom and expressivity of his brushwork has even been linked to 20^thcentury abstract painting.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

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Thursday 12 December 10:30 am – 12:15 noon (time to be confirmed)

Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris 

Visit to the permanent collections just refurbished and re-opened to the public. With Chris Boïcos.

 

Recently renovated, re-hung and expanded, this the second great collection of modern art in Paris after the Centre Pompidou. Located in an elegant neo-classical building from the 1937 Paris World’s Fair it is a spacious, luminous museum usually empty of crowds. The collections include masterpieces by Matisse (including the two first “Dances” for the Barnes collection), Derain, Delaunay, Léger, Dufy, Braque, Picasso, Picabia, Fautrier and the post-war School of Paris. A great Paris museum to discover or re-discover if you haven’t’ been recently!

 

Place: Musée de l’art moderne de la ville de Paris. 1 avenue du Président Wilson 75016. Meet in lobby.

Métro:Iéna (line 9).

Time: 10:15 for 10:30 am entry. 

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

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Course Fee:  144 € for the series or 27 € per lecture.

Museum fees are additional to course fees. The fee reductions are only for the bimonthly series and cannot be applied to future programs.

You can sign up for individual sessions or a series by sending an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

or by calling Chris Boïcos on +33 (0) 686 58 98 09 and by sending a check made out to “Chris Boïcos” to Chris Boïcos, 14 boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. Museum fees are additional to course fees.

Please register for classes in advance to ensure that group visits are not full.

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Myths and Legends, Gods and Lovers in Art

 

This new course in Paris Art Studies introduces us to the major legendary classical characters – gods, goddesses, heroes and lovers – who beginning with the Greeks in the 6^thcentury BC to their rediscovery during the Renaissance and all the way to modern times, mark with their persistent presence the iconography and symbolism of Western art. Find out who Venus, Cupid, Diana, Apollo, Bacchus, Jupiter, Juno, Hercules, Semele, Endymion, Europa, Hermaphrodite, Ariadne and many more mythical figures are and how they have been used time and again by the greatest painters and sculptors of the history of art to represent human passions and foibles in all their intensity or lightheartedness in tragic and comic pictures and sculptures. Our course will cover ancient Greek and Roman art, the Renaissance, the Baroque Age, the 18^thand 19^thcenturies as well as the Modern period and many of the greatest artists of all time from Praxiteles to Picasso. We will be visiting the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and Gustave Moreau museums in Paris.

 

Wednesday 6 November 10:30 - 12 noon:  

Diana – The Moon, Chastity and the Hunt– Slide lecture with Chris Boïcos.

 

Artemis/Diana is the sister of Apollo and the goddess of chastity and the hunt, often associated with the goddess of the moon, Selene or Luna. Her ideal beauty and purity made her a perfect symbol for aristocratic ladies of the Renaissance and the 18th century who were flattered by painters by being depicted charmingly seated on a cloud daintily holding on to a bow and quiver. Easily offended she can also be a very dangerous divinity and severely punish the unfortunates who cross her, like the hunter Acteaon and her companion Callisto. We will examine her presentation in the cult statues of antiquity - Greek originals and Roman copies - and in mythological scenes of the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical periods in the work of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens, Boucher, Girodet and many more celebrated masters.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

 

Wednesday 13 November 10:30 - 12 noon:  

The Labors of Hercules – Slide lecture with Chris Boïcos.

Herakles/Hercules is the mortal hero who after his labors and multiple adventures on earth became a demi-god. The strongest, if not most intelligent of men, he can be seen as an ageless symbol of struggling humanity:  Often foolish and vain but also wily and persistent, never really giving up and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. His twelve labors performed as a penance to the gods after having murdered his children in a bout of folly are one of the most popular subjects of art in antiquity and from the Renaissance onwards. We will examine them and other Herculean legends in the work of great masters like Pollaiolo, Bandinelli, Michelangelo, Giordano, Rubens, Reni, Le Brun, Lemoyne, Moreau and more.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

 

Wednesday 20 November 10:30 - 12 noon:  

Myths and legends in French art – visit to the Musée du Louvrewith Chris Boïcos.

 

Nearly all major French artists from the Renaissance to the Neoclassical period painted Greco-Roman characters and ancient myths and stories which were very popular with art collectors of all periods. From the symbolic approach of the School of Fontainebleau, Poussin’s philosophical interpretations, the erotic and lighthearted handling of mythical figures of the Rococo age to Neoclassical idealism, we will discover the complexity and variety of mythological painting and sculpture in the French collections of the Louvre.

Cousin, Poussin, Le Sueur, Le Brun, Puget, Watteau, Boucher and Gérard are only a few of the French masters we will study.

 

Place: Meet by the auditorium entrance inside Louvre Pyramid. 

Métro: Palais-Royal- Musée du Louvre  (lines 1,7).

Time: 10:15 am for 10:30 start. Please buy your own exhibition ticket on line or even better an annual museum card. Best way in is through the group entrance in the Passage Richelieu between the rue de Rivoli and the Pyramid: use path to the left of the group line by showing your ticket or Louvre card to the guard.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

 

Wednesday 27 November 10:30 - 12 noon:  

Winged Gods and Heroes: Mercury and Perseus–Slide lecturewith Chris Boïcos.

 

The winged god Hermes/Mercury is the messenger of the gods and one of the most fun-loving Olympians, a smart and frequently dishonest trickster. His swiftness and intelligence made him the ideal protector of traders, heralds, diplomats, travelers, thieves, tricksters and athletes. His entertaining exploits have often been celebrated in the history of art notably in the work of Giambologna, Rubens, Velazquez, Coysevox, Elsheimer, Jordaens, Restout, and Fragonard among others. 

Perseus beheader of the Medusa and rescuer of the beautiful Andromeda is the other celebrated winged hero of antiquity. His eminently romantic and dramatic tale which includes his winged horse, Pegasus, has delighted artists though the centuries. We will be looking at famous interpretations of his struggle with the Medusa and the sea monster, leading to his rescue of the beautiful maiden, by Cosimo, Cellini, Titian, Rubens, Puget, Mignard, Canova, Burne-Jones and more.

 

Place: Chris Boïcos apartment. 14, boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. 6th floor (building code: 69168)

Métros: Strasbourg-Saint Denis, exit 3: Porte Saint-Martin (lines 4, 8, 9) or République exit 6: rue René Boulanger (lines 8, 9 - fewer steps). 

Time: 10 am for coffee and tea, lecture begins promptly at 10:30 am.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

 

Wednesday 4 December 10:30 - 12 noon:  

Myths and legends in 19^thcentury French art – visit to the Musée d’Orsay with Chris Boïcos.

 

19^thcentury academic and Salon painters continued painting the myths and legends of the ancient world as part of the high art tradition and classical styles in which they had been trained right up to 1910. Ingres, Gerôme, Bouguereau and Cabanel, among others, were celebrated for valiantly upholding these traditions against the assaults of the modern artists of their time. The modernists themselves, however, also used mythological references in their own work, either as a way of subverting their classical rivals by introducing  a dose of robust reality into trite classical themes (Courbet, Manet), or by reviving the vitality of myth and legend trough new and original interpretations and styles, as in the work of Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau or Paul Gauguin.

 

Place: Inside the Musée d’Orsay: Meet past the ticket control and down the steps in front of the statue of Liberty. 

Métro: RER Musée d’Orsay (line C) or Solférino (line 12).

Time: 10:15 for 10:30 am start. Please buy your own ticket on line.

Fee: 27 € (or reduced fee for series)

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Course Fee:  120 € for 5 sessions, or 27 € per session.

Museum fees are additional to course fees. The fee reductions are only for the bimonthly series and cannot be applied to future programs.

You can sign up for individual sessions or a series by sending an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

or by calling Chris Boïcos on +33 (0) 686 58 98 09 and by sending a check made out to “Chris Boïcos” to Chris Boïcos, 14 boulevard Saint-Martin 75010 Paris. Museum fees are additional to course fees.

Please register for classes in advance to ensure that group visits are not full.