Paris Special Exhibitions
and City Walks
Thursday 13 September, 10:30 am – 12 Noon: Highlights of the Marais
A
Paris city walk with Chris Boïcos.
The Marais became in the late 15th
century the aristocratic district of Paris. Noblemen and high court judges
built themselves the famous urban mansions that the French call “hôtels
particuliers”. Largely spared by Haussmann’s demolitions in the 19th
century, the Marais remains to this day the greatest repository in Paris of
historic architecture from the late Middle Ages to the 18th century.
In our walk we will be looking at some of the greatest “hôtels” of all periods
- the Renaissance, hotel Lamoignon, built for a royal princess, Diana of
France, the townhouses of the first royal square of Paris built by Henri
IV, the place des Vosges, and two great baroque monuments, the hôtels
de Sully and Beauvais, the latter built for the chambermaid and
confidante of Louis XIV’s mother, Anne of Austria. Our walk will end at
the first church with a Baroque façade in Paris, the imposing Saint
Gervais-Saint Protais behind the hotel de ville.
Place: Courtyard of the Hôtel Lamoignon
(bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris) 24 Rue Pavée,
75004.
Métro : Saint-Paul (line 1).
Time: 10:15 for 10:30 am start.
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Thursday 20 September, 11 am - 12:30 pm: Alphonse Mucha
Visit
to the exhibition (12 Sep. – 27 Jan.) at the Musée du Luxembourg with Chris
Boïcos.
This major exhibition
is the first in many years devoted to the Paris-based Czech painter and famous poster artist of the Art Nouveau period. Apart from the
celebrated advertising posters featuring Sarah
Bernhardt as a model with their floral designs and sinuous outlines, the
exhibition also features Mucha’s lesser known history paintings, decorative
objects, jewelry and also his ambitious cycle of Slav paintings carried out between 1911 and I928 showing his
patriotic attachment to his Czech homeland. Following the creation of
Czechoslovakia in 1918 Mucha was raised to the status of first national Czech painter and designed the postal stamps and
bank notes of the new nation as well as the famous murals of the Prague
Municipal House.
Place: Outside entrance of Musée du Luxembourg –
19 rue de Vaugirard 75006.
Métro : St Sulpice (line 4) or
Odéon (lines 4 and 6).
Time: 10:45 for 11 am entry. Please bring
13,50 € for the exhibition ticket
and 1,5 € for the headphones (15 €
total) in exact change.
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Thursday 27 September, 10 - 11:30 am: The Impressionists in London - French
artists in exile, 1870-1904
Visit
to the exhibition at the Petit Palais (until 14 October) with Chris Boïcos.
The Franco-Prussian War of
1870, the fall of the Second Empire and the Paris Commune pushed a number of French
artists to seek refuge in England. At the time, the British Empire was at the
summit of its political and financial power. London was a safe haven for the
artists who left Paris, but the choice of their destination was also guided by
the idea that the art market there
was more dynamic than in Paris. The works they exhibited and, in many cases,
sold to English collectors brought a breath of modernity to British art and
institutions. Reciprocally, the experience of exile in England exerted a new influence on French art. Some artists
were already well-known (Carpeaux,
Tissot, Daubigny); others would become known by teaching their art (Legros, Dalou), while the future
Impressionists (Pissarro, Monet, Sisley)
had difficulty in convincing British audiences, in spite of the support of
Durand-Ruel, a merchant who promoted French art in London. Co-organized with
Tate Britain in London, the exhibition brings together more than 100 masterpieces born on the banks of
the Thames in the misty, industrial atmosphere of Victorian London. The story
ends in 1904 with Derain, who came
to paint London in the explosive colors of Fauvism.
Place: Group entrance (right
hand side of main stairs) or lobby (if raining) of Petit Palais avenue Winston
Churchill 75008.
Métro: Champs-Elysées- Clemenceau (lines 1, 13).
Time: 9:45 for 10 am start.
Please bring 14 € for museum ticket in exact change. We have 10 pre-bought
group tickets.
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Thursday 4 October, 10:15 – 11:45 am: Caravaggio
in Rome: Friends and Enemies
Visit
to the exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André (21 Sep. – 28 Jan.) with Chris Boïcos.
Nine masterpieces by the great Italian Baroque painter will
exceptionally be brought together for this unique exhibition in Paris from major Italian museums— the Palazzo
Barberini, the Galleria Borghese, the Musei Capitolini in Rome, the Pinacoteca
di Brera in Milan, the Musei di Strada Nuova in Genoa, and the Museo Civico in
Cremona, as well as the famous Lute Player from the Hermitage
Museum of Saint Petersburg, presented in France for the first time. These nine canvases
retrace Caravaggio’s Roman period
from his arrival in the city in 1592 until his exile in 1606. They will be
complemented by the works of leading contemporary painters, such as Cavaliere
d’Arpino, Annibale Carracci, Orazio Gentileschi, Giovanni Baglione, and
José de Ribera, in order to
highlight Caravaggio’s immense impact on the painters of his time and the
artistic effervescence of Rome in one of its greatest artistic periods at the
dawn of the Baroque age.
Place: Musée
Jacquemart-André, 158 boulevard Haussmann 75008. Meet outside main entrance.
Métro: Miromesnil (lines
9, 13).
Time: Meet 10 am for 10:15 am entry. Please bring 15 € in for exhibition ticket and 1,5
€ for the headphones (16,5 € total) in exact change.
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Monday 8 October, 4:45 – 6:30 pm: Miró
Visit to the exhibition at the Grand Palais (3 0ct. – 4 Feb.) with Chris Boïcos.
Joan Miró (1893-1983) is
considered one of the giants of 20th century Modernism. He arrived in Paris
from his native Catalonia in 1919 bearing a lemon cake from Picasso’s mother as
a gift to his famous fellow Spanish contemporary who subsequently introduced
him to the Paris art world. In the 1920’s he joined the Paris Surrealist
movement and though he later followed his own distinctive path in painting, he never
gave up on the Surrealist tenets of creative inspiration through dreams, chance
occurrences and psychic intuition. His best work combines an almost child-like
delight in luminous color, pictograms and whimsical or scary creatures with an extraordinary
sense of freedom but also monumentality in his compositions. This major retrospective
brings together 150 works covering all phases of a 70-year career borrowed from
all major Miró collections in the world including MoMA and the Miró museum in
Barcelona. Not to be missed!
Place: Group and cardholders entrance outside
exhibition at the Grand Palais.
Métro: Champs-Elysées Clémenceau (lines 1
and 13).
Time: 4:30
for 4:45 pm entry. Please bring 16 € for
the exhibition ticket and 2 € for the earphones (18 € total) in exact change.
Thursday 11 October 9:45 – 11:15 am: Giacometti
- From
Tradition to Avant-garde
Visit
to the exhibition at the Musée Maillol (14 Sep. – 20 Jan.) with Chris Boïcos.
This overview of the
œuvre of the great modern Swiss sculptor was co-organized with the Giacometti Foundation in Paris and is
complemented by works by classical and modern sculptors of his time. 50
sculptures by Alberto Giacometti are juxtaposed for the first time to works by
other major modern sculptors like Rodin,
Bourdelle, Maillol, Despiau, Brancusi, Laurens, Lipchitz, Zadkine, Csaky, and Richier. The exhibition traces all
phases of Giacometti’s evolution from his early works, which still bear the
influences of classical Modernism (Despiau and Maillol), his discovery of the
Parisian avant-garde after 1925 (Zadkine, Lipchitz, and Csaky) and Surrealism
(Brancusi and Laurens). In the final section his famous Post-War standing
figures - La Clairière (1950), Woman of Venice III (1956), and Walking Man II
(1960) – are compared to works by Rodin and his great contemporary Germaine
Richier. Giacometti’s legendary Parisian studio is also evoked via an ensemble
of the artist’s lithographs and photographs taken by some of the greatest 20c photographers, such as Brassaï,
Denise Colomb, Sabine Weiss and Herbert Matter.
Place: Meet at group entrance of Musée Maillol - 61, rue de Grenelle 75007
(Metro Rue du Bac, line12)
Métro: (Rue du Bac,
line 12)
Time: 9:30 for 9:45 am entry. Please bring
14 € for the exhibition ticket and 2 € for the headphones (total of 16 €)
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Thursday 18 October 10:30
am – 12 noon: Picasso, Blue and Rose
Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay (18 Sep. – 6 Jan.) with Chris Boïcos.
The
Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Picasso-Paris are organizing an exceptional event
dedicated to Pablo Picasso’s Blue and
Rose periods. This exhibition is the first large-scale collaboration
between the two museums, allowing them to bring together a number of previously
unseen works. It features masterpieces, some of which, such as La Vie (1903, Cleveland Museum of Art), are being
presented for the first time in France, and proposes a new interpretation of
the years 1900-1906, a critical period in the artist’s career which to date has
not been covered in its entirety by a French museum. The works of the young
Picasso, freshly arrived in Paris from Barcelona, are placed within the context
of the work of his contemporaries and predecessors, both Spanish and French (Casas, Nonell, Casagemas, Steinlen, Degas,
Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin), whom he was able to directly observe at the
salons and galleries of turn of the century Paris.
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.
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Monday 29 October 10:30 am – 12 noon: Jean-Michel Basquiat - Egon Schiele
Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (3 Oct. – 14 Jan.) with Chris Boïcos.
From opposite ends of the 20th
century, and opposite sides of the Atlantic, the lives and works of Egon
Schiele (turn of the century Vienna)
and Jean-Michel Basquiat (end of the century New York) are fascinating for their fleetingness and their
intensity. Both died aged 28. In under a decade, they became major figures in
the art of their century, though Schiele, unlike Basquiat, had to wait for his
world-wide renown for another 50 years after his death. They are linked by
their destiny and their fortune, that of a body of intensely romantic work,
produced in a very short period of time and still immensely appealing to the
general public and the young in particular. Both rebelled against the artistic
and social conventions of their society and day and both, though in very
different styles, can be labeled as the principal Expressionist artists of their time and respective cities. It will
be interesting to see how Basquiat’s brash street graffiti painting style holds
up against the much more classic, linear style and psychological profundity of Schiele
but the comparison is bound to be fascinating and instructive.
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.
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Course
Fee: 160 € for 8 sessions,
147 € for 7 sessions, 135 € for 6 sessions, 115 € 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.
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The History of Paris
– Architecture, Urbanism, Society
Part 9: Paris under Napoleon
III and Baron Haussmann – Birth of a Modern Metropolis 1848 - 1870
The last French king,
Louis Philippe d’Orléans was ovethrown by revolution in February 1848. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew, was elected president
of the new regime, the “Second Republic” before - following in his uncle’s
steps - declaring the Second Empire
in 1851. Under the direction of Napoleon III and his prefect Georges Haussmann Paris underwent the greatest transformation in its
history. The alliance between modern industry, banking and an authoritarian
regime transformed Paris into the model city for the modern age: clean, ordered
and triumphantly middle class. We will examine this new Paris – the new
boulevards, parks, squares, sewers, public buildings, the new Louvre, the new Opera,
the railway stations and the World’s
Fairs of 1855 and 1867. In the art of the period (Daumier, Courbet,
Chassériau, Couture) we will see how the Realists
lead by Courbet represent the
new society and rebel against the official art of the day, laying the ground
for the emergence of modern art with Manet
and the young Impressionists in the
1860’s.
Course Schedule: Wednesdays 2:30 – 4 pm
Coffee and tea served at home
sessions between 2 and 2:30 pm.
Wed. 12 September – Slide lecture – Louis Napoléon’s plans for the urban
transformation of Paris.
Wed. 19 September – City walk – The heart of Haussmannian Paris: The transformation of Ile de la Cité
and place du Châtelet. Meet at exit of Métro Cité at 2:15 pm (line 4)
Wed. 26 September – Slide lecture – Monumental Paris: The Louvre and Tuileries
palaces, the new Opera.
Wed. 3 October – Visit to the Musée du Louvre – The Second Empire apartments in the Louvre.
Meet under the Louvre Pyramid by auditorium entrance at 2:15 pm with ticket in hand.
Wed. 10 Octobrer – Slide lecture – Paris and Parisians in French painting
1848-1870. From Courbet to Manet.
Wed. 17 October – City walk – Garnier Opera and the Grand Hotel. Meet on the steps of Garnier
Opera at 2:15 for a 2:30 pm start (lines 3,7,8 and RER A at Auber)
Course
Fee: 135 € for 6 sessions,
115 € 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.
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Coming up in November-December 2018 :
Monday 5 November 10:30 –12 noon:
Paula Rego -
Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie (17 Oct. – 14 Jan.)
Thursday 15 November 10:30 – 12 noon
Impressionist to Fauve Masterpieces from Private Collections.
Visit
to the exhibition at the Musée Marmottan museum (13 Sep. – 10 Feb.)
Thursday 22 November 10:30 – 12 noon:
Venice in the Time of Vivaldi and Tiepolo - Slide lecture on the exhibition at the Grand
Palais (24 Sep. – 21 Jan.)
Thursday 29 Nov. 10:30 – 12 noon:
Cubism - Slide
lecture on the exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (17 Oct. – 25 Feb.)
Thursday 6 December
12 noon - 1:30 pm
Dorothea Lange -
Visit to the exhibition at the Jeu de Paume (16 Oct. – 20 Jan.)
Thursday 13 December 10:30 –
12 noon (time and date to be confirmed):
Japan and Japonisme, 150 years
of Resonance between France and Japan
Visit
to the exhibition at the Musée des art décoratifs (15 Nov. – 3 Mar.)
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