July 14, Bastille Day

 Image Musee Carnavalet Paris

Today the French Celebrate  Murder and mayhem

amongst other things.

I have been watching the British historian Michael Wood's brilliant  BBC series

"Story of England". 

How is it that the British have been able to maintain the Monarchy?

A Monarchy which represents a symbol of unity.

A Giant disco-ball is suspended from the Eiffel Tower,
 fireworks and thumping American disco music, not a single French tune.

With strains of the Village People and Donna Summer, it made me miss New York and the days of Studio 54.

Paris Metro

Frogs entering the metro French style.

Taming the Wild Paintbox

Color has preoccupied me all of my life. I am fairly  drunk with color shades and hues, I can experience rapture & ecstasy.

My eyes drink in what is fleeting and often indescribable.

My career took me on a surreptitious route from illustration to jewelry design and back again.

Jewelry is about colorful gems and reflected light.

I had an accumulation of watercolors in pans and tubes from various manufacturers from around the globe. Recently in planning a new series of paintings I had to put all of the paint in one coherent place. For this series I have had to limit the palette.

Saturday's Thoughts

Learn to use purple.

Betty Page Clothing
Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Think Pink!

Sanyu 1950

Taiwan, Mr & Mrs Y. C. Hsieh collection

Via the Musee Guimet Paris

French Spin

Celebrate

 Its time to look around and celebrate!

Paris 2012

Sing

This post is to celebrate music.  My son  has a wonderful singing voice which we only recently discovered. He is  being trained by a remarkably talented singer and voice teacher,  who trained at Julliard.
 Valerie KOMAR  http://www.valeriekomar.com/

He has a deep baritone/bass.  He sang at the Erik Satie conservatoire in the choir when he was little, he reads music,  plays guitar, and piano. But this BIG voice is such a surprise!

An exuberant Dufy always does the trick!

 A Cocteau or two

A Picabia for spice, very nice!

Of thee I sing.

A Few Romantic Notions

Paris Streets and Windows

Gucci 

Burberry

Guerlain

Louis Vuitton

Christmas 2011

Arc  De Triomphe

Happy New Year 2012
  Strive for Serenity

French Tarts

The above event happened this past weekend in Paris.

 I read about it in
this fab free weekly on the metro.

I started to think about the history of Montmartre and the French music-halls

From the photo above It seems apparent that the American born burlesque artist  Dita Von Teese has had  a big impact on the burlesque scene here in Paris. Her shows at the Crazy Horse have her signature vintage style. 

She is now full-fledged member of the fashion world with with her own lucrative licenses. 

  Paris still has its  Oh La La-ness

from the absinthe-crazed 19th century right up to the present day.

David Lachapelle Art + Commerce

Image from Grazia 28.10.2011

Made in France.

From Jenny Carre L'age d'or du music-hall et de l'operette

1937 le Casino de Paris

 Tarts by  Marcel Vertes.
"Vertes was described as more recklessly, casually spontaneous than ever Christian Berard would dare to be. He gleefully fixes foibles and vanities of the beau monde with his deliciously spiteful brush."  Quoted from Fashion Drawings in Vogue

 Assorted  French Tarts

Jenny Carre L'age d'or du music-hall et de l'operette

This is a wonderful book

Pigalle is the home of the Moulin-Rouge

Music hall society in the late 19th century.

Adelaide Hall who was American born and British by marriage.
 immortalized by Paul Colin in 1928

Poster for the Moulin Rouge by Rene Gruau



Pigalle is still living up to its lascivious reputation.  Last week I had the occasion to go up there.  My son and I  went to  a music shop. He explained (and he is just a teenager) that it depends which side of the street you are on, as to the exact nature of your business.
They must discuss these things in French high school.

  By Ranson

I have always been fascinated by  the remarkable degree of creativity involved in staging of the reviews at the famous  Parisian music halls.  in 2001 we started collecting original gouache costume designs from the Follies Berger, and Casino de Paris etc. Circa 1925-1929.
They are colorful, exotic, and whimsical, full of fantasy, humor, and frivolity.   

 Another place where you can look for lovely French tarts,

Any good patisserie.

It's Really Goude

From the catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

On the streets, 

From the catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

In the Metro

In Paris we are surrounded by the iconic images of Jean Paul Goude. His sensibility has infused the world for the past 40 years. He worked for a time in New York for Esquire Magazine.

From the catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

His extraordinary work with ravishing Grace Jones has left an indelible mark on us all.

From the catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

A fearless and evocative exploration of  androgyny.

Perhaps he was inspired by the original exotic, Josephine Baker.

Josephine Baker 1926 Photo  from my collection

His work in print,  films,  television commercials, and 

 spectacles  is luminary.

 From the catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

His drawings are marvelous. They are the first impulse of creation. 

He even produced the Bicentenary of the French revolution. 

He draws on everything with passion from ethnology, film, art, recombining these impressions in  distinctive unique and very surprising ways

 The catalog Jean-Paul Goude a Retropspective, Thames and Hudson

His cut and stretched Ektachromes, and his work for Gallery Lafayette are memorable. 

The exhibition is well designed, it imbues one with a complete sense of the man, and his genius. 

He is a person who  truly has been making a difference in our collective consciousness, in the way we see things.

 Musees Des Arts Decoratifs

The first piece one sees at the entry of the exhibition  has a very personal significance.
I too have been inspired  by the deformed craniums, magnificent coiffures, and exotic profiles
of the Mangbetu women.  I collect  original ethnographic documents.

 

I painted this in 1998.

100 cm. X 75 cm.  oil on silver foil over wood with  traditional gesso, like a giant Icon.

Photograph from my collection.

I suspect we were both inspired by the same original photo circa 1925.

Goude's version is three dimesional, larger,  way sexier,  spinning, and pumping out dance music.
It is  over-the-top and totally fabulous!

By the way, her name was Nebozodru from the Mangbetu tribe, present day Zaire. she was very young, and the 15th wife of Koli,  the chief.

Exhibition announcement 1927

Unbeknownst to Nebozodru she was an icon in France for many years after her photograph was taken during the Citroen sponsored African expedition .