I Prefer Paris

Marais Architectural Details

I’ve stayed close to home in recent weeks and rediscovered the architectural wonders of the Marais. I recently had to do a slide show and lecture about the Marais for an organization, so I took new photos of familiar buildings, casting my eye again but in a refreshed way. In case you didn’t know, a large swath of the Marais has former palaces and mansions that were built in the late 1500s to almost 1700. These gorgeous buildings, called hotels, are made of limestone and have ornate details such as masks, iron balconies, statues, and clocks. I’ve also included photos of the Saint Paul Church, which was built between 1625 and 1640. 

The next four photos are of a stunning former mansion built in 1623, L'hotel de Montmort, at 79 rue de Temple. The building is now a combination of apartments and art galleries.

Below are photos of the Saint Paul Church

Hotel de Sully, built between 1625 and 1630. The four sculptures below, two in each, represent the elements:

Air, land, fire, and water

The four sculptures below, two in each, represent the four seasons: left, fall, right, winter/Old Man winter, left, spring, right, summer

This is the rear or garden courtyard, and the main floor, with the green doors, was an orangerie

Order Photos From My Etsy Shop 

I have updated my Etsy shop with 15 new photos in addition to my other classic photos from before. In addition, I can make a print of almost every photo you see on Eye Prefer Paris.

Below are sizes and prices.

10x13 inches $60

11x14 inches $80

16x20 inches $115

Click here to go to my Etsy shop. 

Photos are printed on Fuji crystal Archive metallic paper with rich satin gloss finish and is unframed.

Prints are printed in N.J. and sent by USPS. Delivery time is 2-5 days.

If you have any questions about the photos, please email me at [email protected]

Door(s) of the Month February 2021- A Potpourri

I first want  to thank everyone who watched my Live In the Footsteps of Arsene Lupin Facebook tour for France.fr. It was a big success with over 700 people watching it live, and over 12K views of the video along with 664 comments. I also want to give a warm welcome all of my new subscribers who signed up for Eye Prefer Paris. Here’s the link to watch if you missed it: 

https://www.facebook.com/144282132273340/videos/5807669259247093

Instead of focusing on a single or a group of particular doors, this month is a potpourri of doors I recently photographed all around Paris. Do you have some favorites? 

Order Photos From My Etsy Shop 

I have updated my Etsy shop with 15 new photos in addition to my other classic photos from before. In addition, I can make a print of almost every photo you see on Eye Prefer Paris.

Below are sizes and prices.

10x13 inches $60

11x14 inches $80

16x20 inches $115

Click here to go to my Etsy shop. 

Photos are printed on Fuji crystal Archive metallic paper with rich satin gloss finish and is unframed.

Prints are printed in N.J. and sent by USPS. Delivery time is 2-5 days.

If you have any questions about the photos, please email me at [email protected]

Marais Gallery Shows Part 2-February 2021: Galerie NEC & Bendana/Pinel

Continuing the coverage of the current shows at the contemporary art galleries in the Marais, today I am writing about Galerie NEC and Galerie Bendana/Pinel.  

Judith Maria Kleintjes Show at Galerie NEC

The Judith Maria Kleintjes show at Galerie NEC is a myriad of art forms including watercolors, sculptures, and drawings, on a small scale and hung in a well-executed, meticulously measured manner. The balance between the mediums is also well executed. 

The simplicity of some of the plant watercolors evoke the minimalist Japanese form. A burnished, copper color, metal oval gives an earthy warmth to the gray, black, and white tones of the other works. One of the more eye-catching pieces is an abstract collage of white ceramic sculptures with small holes in each one, resembling a jigsaw puzzle. 

In her artist’s statement, Kleintjes writes about her research of her work process and says “I investigate the phenomenon of time and space, the relationship between perception and actuality, reality and image. My work is based on the experience and the examination of the essence of nature.”   

Galerie NEC

117 rue Vieille du Temple, 75003 

Judith Maria Kleintjes Show is on until 3/13/2021 

https://galerienec.com/exibitions-events/

The Brake by Julio Rondo at Galerie Bendana/Pinel

At Galerie Bendana/Pinel, Spanish artist Julio Rondo, is now exhibiting his solo exhibition, The Brake. 

When first I glanced at the paintings, they were a series of bold, wide brushstrokes in vibrant colors. Upon closer inspection, the paintings were a lot more intricate, and took on another dimension as I noticed some of the brushstrokes were directly painted on back of the front glass panel. The mixture of color palate is superb and the overlapping, vertical brush strokes bring to mind the geometry of Josef Albers in a more fluid form. 

In his color choices, Rondo takes a cue from the past with the acute colors from pop culture and makes them relevant for his work today. 

4 rue du Perche, 75003

The Brake is on until March 20, 2021 

http://www.bendana-pinel.com/en/shows/

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

Please join me for an Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour-February 17 @10am EST 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then. 

Valentine’s Day 2021

Vincent has been my one and only Valentine since we met in March of 1977. Yesterday we exchanged some cool gifts. 

A few weeks ago, while browsing Instagram, I saw a post about a box of cookies, hand decorated for Valentine’s Day by a company named So Bang. I went to their website to discover that they create customized, shortbread cookies for all occasions and also for companies such as Cartier, Conde Nast, Dior, Gucci, and Vogue. 

I ordered the box and they even hand wrote a note with text I sent them. Vincent opened them and he had a lovely grin on his face. The elegant, Prada blue color  box, much like you would put an expensive piece of jewelry in, had a simple logo surrounded by an oval. Inside, each cookie was individually wrapped in cellophane, and each had a unique design. The super, cute and adorable gems, each with white icing are almost too pretty to eat. 

https://www.sobangparis.com/

Vincent gave me a beautiful and inspiring photo book, Paris by Jean Loup Sieff. First off, I love the cover: a pleasing periwinkle with bold block letters spelling out Paris, Jean Loup Sieff and a small, black and white photo of the Eiffel Tower taken on plaza of Palais de Chaillot, affixed on the cover. Inside is a series of exquisite black and white photos capturing the romance, mystery, and beauty of Paris, which is inspiring, because that’s what I strive for in my own Paris photos. There’s a special insert of a catalogue of color photos (the only ones in the book) of the Ritz Hotel. 

Jean Loup Sieff, 1933- 2000, was born in Paris to Polish immigrants. His first photo was published in Photo Revue in 1950, and after that, he became a prolific photojournalist, working freelance for major magazines and publications including Elle, Look, Glamour, Esquire, and Harpers Bazaar. He went on to receive numerous awards, including the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honnueur by the French Minister of Culture. Sieff was also a member of the prestigious Magnum photographers and had a solo exhibition at the Musee de Art Moderne in Paris in 1976. 

Paris by Jean Loup Sieff is part of a new series of books named Fashion Eye published by Louis Vuitton, which celebrates travel photography by prominent artists from around the world. 

https://eu.louisvuitton.com/eng-e1/products/fashion-eye-paris-015600

Our Valentine’s Day culminated with an extravagant dinner of spaghetti with squash, fennel, parmesan, and lentil meatballs served with a pistachio pesto prepared by Vincent, the master chef. Of course, we ate some of the special So Bang cookies for dessert.

What did you do to celebrate Valentine’s Day? 

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

Please join me for an Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour-February 17 @10am EST 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then.

Paris In The Snow 2021: Parc Monceau

Late on Tuesday night it started to snow, and I prayed it would stick until morning. Since it was so cold out, 27 degrees Fahrenheit, when I woke up, it indeed stuck. I looked down on the rue Saint Antoine and people were trudging in the snow wearing boots. I hurriedly did my morning routine- breakfast, reading The Guardian and The New York Times online, Qi Gong exercise video, and shower- and headed to Parc Monceau. I had taken snow photos there about ten years ago, and I wanted revisit. 

It was a very much welcomed, sunny day with crystal blue skies, a rarity in the usually gray skies of a Paris winter. The branches of the mighty trees lining the park had fresh white snow decorating them. It’s a school holiday this week and kids were frolicking in the snow while serious adult joggers had a no-fun expression on their faces dealing with the snow that was slowing down their progress. 

Do you have some favorites here? Also, I made alternate copies of certain photos in black and white and color, so let me know which you prefer. 

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

Please join me for an Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour-February 17 @10am EST 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then. 

 

Eye Prefer Paris Book of the Month, February 2021: The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

I am thrilled to finally have The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles as my February selection. The Paris Library was supposed to be published last year but was delayed because of Covid. Interestingly, the book was published in a number of other countries before the USA, and Janet would share on Facebook the rave reviews The Paris Library received in Italy, France, and Romania. 

​Based on the true World War II story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris, this is an unforgettable story of romance, friendship, family, and the power of literature to bring us together, perfect for fans of The Lilac Girls and The Paris Wife.

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal.

Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbor. As Lily uncovers more about her neighbor’s mysterious past, she finds that they share a love of language, the same longings, and the same intense jealousy, never suspecting that a dark secret from the past connects them.

A powerful novel that explores the consequences of our choices and the relationships that make us who we are—family, friends, and favorite authors—The Paris Library shows that extraordinary heroism can sometimes be found in the quietest of places.

Janet and her publisher have generously agreed to give away a copy of The Paris Library to an Eye Prefer Paris reader in the continental USA. 

Be the third person to make a comment about the book in my comments section and win your copy of the book.  Email subscribers, if you go to the bottom of this email, in small print it says “You are subscribed to email updates from I Prefer Paris”. Click on I Prefer Paris, and on the bottom of the post you will see COMMENT in small letters. Click on that to make a comment. 

CLICK HERE to order your copy of The Paris Library. 

Janet Skeslien Charles

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

Please join me for an Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour-February 17 @10am EST 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then. 

 

Marais Gallery Shows Part 1-February 2021: Karsten-Greve and Marian Goodman

Since museums, cinemas, music halls and venues, and theaters are closed in Paris because of the pandemic, the only cultural recreation available right now is art galleries. 

I strolled to my favorite contemporary Marais art galleries last week and there’s a number of excellent shows. Over the next few posts, I am going write about the current shows along with photos. 

Today, it’s Galerie Karsten-Greve and Marion Goodman. 

Highlight At Karsten Greve 

My favorite show is Highlight, a collection of paintings by Chinese artist Ding Yi . Yi’s previous show at Karsten Greve was titled Grids, and grids are still present in the current show.  One of the reasons these paintings resonate with me is because my partner Vincent is a painter, and when I first met him in 1977, he had created a series of paintings also based on a grid, which are similar to these. Highlight brought back my fondness of the discipline of the grid, offset with colorful, abstract brushstrokes in between. The varied color palette was also appealing with one series with black backgrounds that’s densely saturated with black and highlighted with touches of red and chartreuse stars and another series which is much softer tones of yellow, green, and blue. Another series of black and white paintings, the white portions were formulated to look like large snowflakes. There are a few works on paper and one with shades of deep green and ink blues looking more like a textile or tapestry, stood out. 

5 Rue Debelleyme, 75003

https://galerie-karsten-greve.com/fr/expositions/detail/10111-highlight

Apres At Marian Goodman Gallery 

In the first show in Paris since his retrospective at the Pompidou last year, Christian Boltanski is presenting Aprés. Consisting of sculptures, video projections, and a big new video installation. In the main gallery on the ground level, Les Lignes, an evocative series of bales of crumpled white material piled high onto trolleys and above are thin white neon tubes that are intertwined. A series of children’s faces illuminated on a back wall literally gives a face to the show, titled Les Esprits,  perhaps giving the work meaning or putting it into a particular context. Boltanski says of the face illuminations “It’s about the ghosts that are linked to us, the ones we remember, and that appear like this on the walls. Since I used these images many times before, these ghosts are more like my own, and downstairs, they are rather like everyone’s ghosts."

If you don’t know Boltanski’s work, the strong theme in his past shows and installations is about the Holocaust. Boltanski lived in Paris at the end of WWII and as a small child, witnessed his Jewish father hiding under a floor board in their Paris apartment, surviving being sent to the concentration camps. 

On the bottom level, the video installation Les Disparus (2020) covers four large curtains on which "clichéd videos of a fabricated vision of happiness hide subliminal images of the horrors that took place in the century I was born into and that unfolded in parallel to part of my life," explains the artist. "For most of us, they remain present in our subconscious."

79 rue du Temple, 75003

https://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/433-christian-boltanski-apres/

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

Please join me for an Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour-February 17 @10am EST 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then. 

 

A French I Love Lucy?

Imagine that Lucy is now French, Ricky is American, and they live in the house from the Dick Van Dyke Show. 

It seems a little far-fetched but it’s almost true. A few nights ago, I was fishing around on You Tube, and something came up about a TV show called “Angel” from 1960, shot in black and white. The premise of the show is how a sparkly French gal marries a straight-laced American guy and how they both deal with their cultural and language differences in a lively and comedic way. 

In the first episode we find the bright-eyed Angelique Smith (of course, her married name) played by French actress Annie Farget, cooing up to her all-American husband John Smith, played by the tall and handsome Marshall Thompson. They discuss the logistics of giving their first dinner party as a newly married couple, and John asks if Angelique is nervous about entertaining their guests and if she has “butterflies”, as in butterflies in her stomach. She doesn’t understand the meaning of butterflies, and then cutely says “I’ll put them on my grocery list”. Another funny routine is when she is trying to better her English and to figure out how to pronounce words with “ough” at the end and stumbles each time there’s a different way of pronouncing ough, including the words enough, through, cough, and bough. Similar to Lucy in nature, Angelique is animated but has a short temper, frequently losing her cool in a childlike way. 

In the next scene Angelique goes market shopping and has a humorous altercation about buying a melon with a Frenchman who works at the fruit and vegetable station. 

The dinner party, consisting of two middle-aged couples, is an unbridled success, as the husbands ogle over Angelique’s cooking and personality and the wives are impressed with her ease and grace.

I won’t tell you more about the plot, as not to spoil it to for you but the dinner party goes almost too well, and the war of the sexes ensues, where the women gang up on the men to get back at them, and it later blows up in Angelique’s face. 

Angel was created and produced by Jess Oppenheimer, who was the head writer, and what Lucille Ball called the brains behind “I Love Lucy”. You can see the I Love Lucy stamp and style all over Angel, with hallmarks such as the outlandish antics, site-gags, physical humor, and classic comedic timing. The style of filming, the laugh track, and the musical score (by Wilbur Hatch who scored I Love Lucy) is also similar. Oppenheimer also cast some familiar faces from I Love Lucy, including Doris Singleton, who played Carolyn Appleby, Lucy’s arch enemy.

Unfortunately, Angel only ran for one season, but there are 33 episodes to enjoy. 

Episodes of Angel are available on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI9sSfI_pXNO_XYouTqZu45sjswvaLmJ

If you watch Angel, let me know if you laughed out loud like I did. 

 

Save The Date- February 17- Arsene Lupin Facebook Live Tour

France keeps churning out the hits on Netflix. After the success of Emily in Paris, Lupin, which started streaming last month, became the most popular French series ever watched, going to #1 in many of the countries Netflix is available in. 

Arsene Lupin, was a gentleman thief and the main character in a series of bestselling crime novels from the early 1900s by Maurice Leblanc. Lupin, the series, is an updated version of Arsene Lupin, who is played by the charismatic Omar Sy. The main plot of the entertaining show revolves around the theft of a diamond necklace once owned by Marie Antoinette, which is stolen by Lupin. He steals it to avenge his father’s death in prison when he was a teenager. 

My Facebook Live Emily in Paris tour last month (Thanks to everyone who watched it) was such a success that France.fr invited me to do a live Lupin tour. Locations from the show include rue de Rivoli, the Louvre, and the Tuileries plus maybe some surprises. 

The date is Wednesday, February 17, from 4pm to 5pm EST. 

Click here to reserve your spot and I look forward to seeing you then. 

Click here to watch my Facebook Live Emily in Paris tour if you missed it last month. 

 

Behind the Paris Street Signs Series 4: Le Marais and Bastille

For series four of Behind the Paris Street Signs, I stayed mostly in my neighborhood, the Marais, and a little bit beyond, to the Bastille. 

Boulevard Beaumarchais 

The Boulevard Beaumarchais runs from the Place de la Bastille to Boulevard Filles-du-Calvaire, which is an extension of the same boulevard that eventually ends at Place de la Republique. It is named after the celebrated playwright and writer, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799), who wrote two of the most famous comedies of the time, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, which were both later adapted into iconic operas. Beaumarchais had many other talents and skills besides writing including an inventor- inventing an important watch mechanism (his father was a watchmaker), musician, diplomat, arms dealer, and a spy. Beaumarchais was an early supporter of the American Revolution and later became part of the French Revolution. In his personal life, Beaumarchais was married three times and at one point was accused by his enemies of poisoning his first two wives in order to inherit their fortunes. 

Just off the rue Saint Antoine, right before Place de la Bastille, is a bronze statue of Beaumarchais, standing erect, proudly folding his arms. 

Rue Necker

Jacques Necker, who lived from 1732 until 1804, was a banker from Geneva who later became a finance minister under King Louis XVI, a French statesman, and a political economist. His role of finance minister from 1777 to 1781, for which he was eventually fired from, after creating a controversy, when he publicly disclosed the country’s budget publicly, when they were always hidden by the rule of the monarchy. 

There’s a children’s hospital in Paris named after Necker. 

Rue Amelot 

In the 11^th arrondissement, rue Amelot is named after Antoine-Jean Amelot de Chaillou, who was a French politician who held various government positions including president of Grand Conseil/Grand Council, Secretary of State of the Département de la Maison du Roi, and intendant of finances. De Chaillou also held various positions at the French Academy of Sciences, from an honorary member to eventually becoming the president in 1779. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1792, like other nobles of the time, and died in the Luxembourg Prison in 1795. 

Rue Clotilde de Vaux

More like a passageway in between Boulevard Beaumarchais and rue Amelot, Rue Clotilde de Vaux is named after Clotilde de Vaux, a writer who inspired philosopher and writer August Comte to invent the secular Religion of Humanity. De Vaux, who was born in Paris and lived from 1815 to 1846 (she tragically died of tuberculosis at the tender age of 31), was forced into an arranged marriage by her family, but her husband turned out to be a scoundrel who abandoned de Vaux and fled to Belgium, running up a sizeable gambling debt. She moved to the rue Payenne in the Marais, and became a writer, writing short stories for literary magazines. In 1844, she met Auguste Comte, who at the time was a professor at Ecole Polytechnique. Comte fell madly in love with de Vaux and even though she didn’t return his love, she agreed to exchange letters until she died in 1846.

Rue Roger Verlomme

Rue Roger Verlomme has one of my favorite Marais restaurants on it, Chez Janou, which serves an incomparable chocolate mousse. Roger Verlomme was born in 1890 and died in 1950 and held many important government jobs including a private secretary in the army during WWI, and the prefect in various departments in France. He forsake his government duties in WWII because he didn’t support the Vichy Government’s policies, and joined the Resistance in 1940, along with his son. His last position was the prestigious Prefect of the Seine. There’s a public school named after Verlomme in the 15^th arrondissement.