Art
‘Art Hiding In Paris’ A Perfect Companion For Exploring The City Of Light
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No city has more artwork than Paris and no city is more artwork than Paris. Ornamental building façades enliven every surface in every direction. Uncountable statues and memorials and fountains creating the world’s largest outdoor sculpture park. Eiffel’s dramatic, soaring, Modernist spire.
There’s so much art in Paris–much of it right out in the open–many visitors don’t even realize the masterpieces they bypass on their way to the museum or café.
Following the success of 2020’s “Art Hiding in New York,” Lori Zimmer returns with “Art Hiding in Paris” (November 29, 2022; Running Press), another insightful, bouncy tour of parks, cafés, side streets, churches, cemeteries, train stations, hotel lobbies and, in this case, cabarets, calling attention to compelling artworks typically overlooked across Paris.
Like a pair of massive spheres–each 20-feet across–commissioned by Louis the XIV.
A mural renovated in 2020 revealing, for the first time since Nazi occupation, Charlie Chaplin.
A sundial from Salvador Dalí.
Zimmer, a New Yorker, began spending large portions of each summer in Paris in 2017, a ritual she has continued through this year, 2020 being an exception. As soon as France began allowing U.S. tourists to return in June 2021, she was on one of the first flights back, her final push of researching and writing for this book.
Through all those previous summers and trips in between, however, Zimmer had been subtly preparing for “Art Hiding in Paris.”
“I would go to all this stuff anyway, that’s how I vacation, so it just made sense, if I’m (in Paris) and reading up on it anyway, I might as well start keeping tabs and writing about it just in case,” she told Forbes.com.
Tidy, easily fit into a backpack or large purse, “Art Hiding in Paris” serves as a travel companion for exploring the city, each entry including which arrondissement–neighborhood–artworks can be found in along with their addresses. A map and index help visitors stack multiple sites into single excursions. Zimmer has also put together a series of self-guided walking itineraries–“Left Bank Lunch,” “Montmartre Morning”–for travelers to make the most of their limited time.
Also returning from “Art Hiding in New York” for “Art Hiding in Paris” is Zimmer’s childhood friend, Maria Krasinski, whose watercolor illustrations of featured locales again add spirited whimsey and personality to the book, making it an artwork of its own.
Picasso Sat Here
In Woody Allen’s delightful homage to the city, “Midnight in Paris,” a time-traveling Owen Wilson finds himself in 1920s Paris partying with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, discussing literature with Ernest Hemingway, competing for a lover with Pablo Picasso and having his novel reviewed by Gertrude Stein. Paris is about art, true, but there is no art without artists.
In addition to pointing out artworks around the city, “Art Hiding in Paris” shares with readers places where they can commune with cultural icons from the past.
The art supply shop frequented by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and Van Gogh still furnishing brushes and paint. The cabaret where Loie Fuller and Josephine Baker danced. The historic square where Yoko Ono spread a handful of Keith Haring’s ashes. The studio where Picasso painted Guernica. The flat Theo van Gogh shared with his brother.
“Art Hiding in Paris” and the yearning it creates to visit the city hit high gear when detailing Paris’ numerous cafés, bars, restaurants and their legendary former patrons. An entire chapter is devoted to “Dining with the Masters.”
The bistro Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec invited Vincent van Gogh to join him in sipping absinthe. The brasserie where Diego Rivera, Hemingway and Amadeo Modigliani were regulars. Picasso’s studio was just nearby. The dance hall and open-air restaurant immortalized in one of Renoir’s greatest paintings.
Picasso, Modigliani, Hemingway, Man Ray, Max Ernest and their contemporaries frequented multiple establishments around town, “Art Hiding in Paris” points them out.
“I was inspired going to even the crappiest little café; I love that the ‘historic’ ones are still open, and they love their traditions,” Zimmer said. “They want (visitors) to connect to the past, and you’re also eating your meal, so it’s not just like going to the museum, it’s functional, but with the bonus of learning something and being able to transport to another time.”
“Midnight in Paris” for the rest of us.
Birthplace of the Flâneur
‘Art Hiding in Paris’ illustration by Maria Krasinski.
‘Art Hiding in Paris’ illustration by Maria Krasinski.
A flâneur is a dandy. A fancy gentleman who walks–saunters–the city streets, typically alone, observing its people and rituals. An urban explorer. Parisian Édouard Manet was a classic Flâneur.
Modern-day flâneurs will cherish “Art Hiding in Paris” for how it privileges pedestrians, Zimmer, after all, is one.
“I love to walk around and just be by myself sometimes,” she says. “More than New York even, for some reason, when I’m in Paris, I rarely take the train and I’ll look at the directions and think, ‘Oh, it’s only an hour and a half walk.’ In my head I think that’s totally fine where anywhere else (that’s crazy).”
Hemingway’s “A Movable Feast” was written about Paris and the adage remains true today. A never-ending feast for the eyes and ears and nose and mouth when experienced at street level, the sights and sounds and smells and tastes rich and intimate as only they can be on foot.
“Art Hiding in Paris” doesn’t work from the window of a tour bus–not at full capacity, anyway–this is a book for the pavement pounder, the curious, the slow traveler, the sidewalk savant, the look-arounder the flaneur.
City of Light
“Most of the streetlights cast that kind of yellowish glow and it was the perfect lighting to write to,” Zimmer recalls of the book’s production. “I would walk like 10 miles in the morning checking everything and then write all night to that light–it was cinematic.”
Zimmer’s writing is concise and unpretentious, with a dash of humor. Take her description of the Paris opera house as, “dripping with sculpture, gilding, crystals and ornate sumptuousness… a temple of antiquated opulence.”
With art everywhere, her greatest challenge was editing.
“It was so hard to decide what to not include, that was the hardest part,” Zimmer said. “I tried to make it a mix of some recognizable (landmarks) and some that no one would know anything about.”
Marc Chagall’s resplendent and familiar fresco on the ceiling of the before-mentioned opera house is admired and photographed by tens of thousands annually; in “Art Hiding in Paris” it is preceded by a doorway carving sharing a medieval love story few ever notice.
‘Art Hiding in Paris’ Marc Chagall ceiling fresco. Illustration by Maria Krasinski.
‘Art Hiding in Paris’ Marc Chagall ceiling fresco. Illustration by Maria Krasinski.
“Paris has such a range,” Zimmer said of the city’s public artworks. “For the historical aspects of ‘(Art Hiding in) New York,’ that all happened basically after or during World War II, whereas Paris had a bunch of different periods like the Belle Époque and in between the two wars was when the Bohemian dream happened. The Paris book is more well-rounded.”
As for the most difficult question: New York or Paris?
“Because I’ve been in New York for 17 years, I’m ready for Paris because I feel like I’ve mastered New York and I haven’t mastered Paris and I love unfamiliarity,” Zimmer said. “There’s no place like New York, but Paris is a wonderful place to be alone, to research and work, and that’s the cycle I’m in in my life right now.”
New Yorkers, don’t despair, if you can’t get enough of Zimmer’s commentary on the Big Apple, she has written short essays about an empty NYC during the pandemic for a different book, this one from her significant other, Logan Hicks–himself an artist–and his new book, “Still New York.” It features over 100 photos of Hicks’ observations of an eerily empty New York during the lockdown.
For an “Art Hiding in Paris” Easter Egg from Krasinski, you’ll find an illustration of Zimmer, Hicks and a beloved pet cat on page 230.
Zimmer always intended for Paris to follow “Art Hiding in New York,” and while she’ll take a break from the series to work next on a completely unrelated title, she does hope to return to “Art Hiding” in the future. Where to next?
London.
A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that was believed lost for the past 100 years, is to be auctioned in Vienna.
There are many unanswered questions about the unfinished painting, Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, which Klimt began in 1917 – a year before his death.
There are also debates about who the woman in the picture is, and what happened to the painting during the Nazi era.
The painting’s value is estimated at up to €50m ($53m; £42m), although it may fetch a higher price.
It is believed to depict one of the daughters of either Adolf or Justus Lieser, who were brothers from a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists.
Art historians Thomas Natter and Alfred Weidinger say the painting is of Margarethe Constance Lieser, the daughter of Adolf Lieser.
But the im Kinsky auction house in Vienna, which is auctioning the artwork, suggests the painting could also depict one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette.
Henriette, who was known as Lilly, was a patron of modern art. She was deported by the Nazis and died in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Her daughters, Helene and Annie, both survived the Second World War.
The auction house said in a statement that the exact fate of the painting after 1925 was “unclear”.
“What is know is that it was acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s and went to the current owner through three successive inheritances.”
The identity of the current Austrian owners has not been made public.
The painting is being sold on behalf of these owners and the legal successors of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, based on the Washington Principles – an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the people the pieces were taken from.
Ernst Ploil from im Kinsky told the BBC: “We have an an agreement, according to the Washington principles, with the whole family”.
The im Kinsky catalogue described this agreement as “a fair and just solution”.
However Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the Presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community, said there were still “many unanswered questions”.
She has called for the case to be researched by “an independent party”.
“Art restitution is a very sensitive issue, all research must be carried out accurately and in detail, and the result must be comprehensible and transparent,” Ms Jakubovits said.
“It must be ensured that there is also a state-of-the-art procedure for future private restitutions.”
Klimt’s art has fetched huge sums at auction in the past.
His Lady with a Fan piece sold for £85.3m at Sotheby’s in June 2023, making it the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.
A Penetanguishene couple is saddened that someone has complained to the town about the folk art displayed on their lawn.
“We’re not happy,” says Jim Duguay, who along with his wife Elizabeth, sells and gives away pieces of repurposed painted furniture and wood that would likely otherwise end up in the landfill under their hobby business Dragonfly Unlimited.
Duguay tells MidlandToday that they’re actually recycling old furniture and pieces of board that people no longer want so it’s good for the environment by ensuring fewer things end up being thrown away as garbage.
“I barely cover my costs and a lot of what I do goes to charity,” Duguay says, noting local organizations will often ask for one of his pieces to feature in raffles and as auction items.
Besides art and repurposed furniture, Duguay also creates murals and barn quilts and also paints bureaus and other furniture with specific themes such as sports or in the case of one child, who loved Volkswagens and was in Sick Kids, a dresser and side table featuring car themes.
“Before COVID, we had our stuff out and there was not a problem,” says Duguay.
But that changed a few years ago as Duguay recalls how the town sent a “young lad” who told them there had been a couple of complaints about their lawn display.
“He told us, ‘you have to get this shit off the lawn,’” Duguay says. “It just sucks. We’re keeping a lot of stuff from going to the dump.”
According to the recent notice sent from municipal law enforcement officer Chris Smith, the Duguays are violating zoning bylaw 2022-17.
“Where a home occupation is permitted, the following provisions shall apply: No outdoor storage or display of materials, equipment, wares or merchandise is permitted,” the letter signed by Smith reads, adding that the Duguays have until May 3 to comply with the order.
After MidlandToday contacted the town for a further explanation, Penetanguishene communications and technology coordinator Sarah Marshall provided a response from the bylaw department that further reiterated what was written in Smith’s letter to the Duguays.
“We will not comment on how many complaints were received for a specific property,” the email from the town to MidlandToday reads.
“However, it only takes one to prompt action should an infraction be found.”
The house is actually zoned commercial-residential, according to Duguay, who notes its close proximity to the Main Street and the fact it housed other businesses in the past.
He also adds that other apparent ‘eyesores’ can be found throughout the town, something he notices while taking walks with his dog.
“I’m not picking on anyone, but there’s a ‘72 pickup truck sitting on blocks and three Ski-Doos that are not ever going to run again,” he says.
As well, he notes that their business draws people from out-of-town, who might stick around the area after picking up an item or two to have a meal at one of the local restaurants or shop at one of the town’s stores.
“We’ve had people come up all the way from St. Catharines,” he points out.
Duguay, who is 60 and on the Ontario Disability Support Program due to serious leg issues, says he’s always operated above-board and declares any income he receives from their venture to the government.
“We appreciate those who have supported us,” Duguay notes. “We had a good run for a non-business/hobby. Any future sales will have to be done online as we are no longer displaying our art.
“It saddens us deeply to have to change in this way. Unfortunately, we will no longer be in a position to donate any furniture, or signs to the local charities. This was never a business, just a glorified hobby. We did the best we could.”
And the couple has found support on their social media account.
“It was always a pleasure to see your art and what was new. So sad that it affected some Karen and felt the need to complain,” Sarah Deanne Tizzard writes.
“Eyesore… really? I can think of many other things that are eyesore way more than the beautiful colours of your beautiful creations.”
Adds Carol Pollock: “It’s disgusting what the town is doing to you guys. It’s infuriating actually. So sorry to hear about this.”
Art
An exhibition with a cause: Montreal's 'Art by the Water' celebrates 15 years – CityNews Montreal
The Art by the Water exhibition is set to celebrate its 15th year over the weekend.
For this edition, the event’s proceeds will go towards The Simon Chang Foundation for Change, where Canadian fashion icon, Simon Chang, will then donate the funds to help create “The Sensory Bin Project.”
“We’re very, very thrilled,” said Audrey Riley, Founder and artist of the vernissage. “We have an amazing amount of artwork to show.”
What started with six friends who painted together, now expanded to this yearly charity event.
“Our first show was extremely successful,” said Riley. “Beyond our wildest dreams and hopes.”
“I love Art by the Water,” explained Valeria Szabo, organizer and artist at Art by the Water. “It helps me, it gives me the opportunity to meet people, artists and the people who come to visit.”
“It also gives me a chance to exhibit my art.”
This year, about 200 paintings will be displayed and available for sale inside the historic 200-year-old Beaconsfield Yacht Club from local and guest artists.
“What we’ve accomplished in 15 years, it’s been quite amazing,” said Riley. “So proud that we’re partnering with Simon Chang this year.”
“And for such a good cause,” she added. “Such a worthy charity.”
“I have a foundation, and I love children, I love to inspire people,” said Chang. “This is why I think this is the perfect collaboration.”
A collaboration that will make these bins possible.
The bins will be created by students at Côte Saint-Luc’s Wager Adult Education Centre — then given to other students within the English Montreal School Board (EMSB).
“These are things that (…) children, adults use to help self-regulate their emotions,” said Louise Panet-Raymond, teacher at the Wagar Adult Education Centre.
“This is something that they could go to the back of the class, where the bin will be, with the teacher’s permission, and be able to take out an object and just help them self-regulate, bring them back to a comfortable place emotionally,” she added.
“Some (objects) are squishy, some are very just tactile for different feelings, some are more visual in nature.”
“We all have different needs,” explained Panet-Raymond. “For students, it’s all about self-regulating those emotions and bringing them back to a calmer space.”
The three day ‘art gallery’ happening from April 26 to 28 is open to all, and free to attend.
Donations of any amount are encouraged –- while the artists will give a percentage of their sales to Chang’s foundation — whose philanthropic efforts began in 1986 — and his fashion career this year, celebrating five decades.
“Let’s inspire the young children,” said Chang. “They are our future.”
“I want to collaborate with things that we can inspire them to become better citizens.”
From traditional to mixed media and abstract art –- all Art by the Water visitors will automatically be entered to win one of three paintings, and have a chance to meet Chang, while contributing to the cause.
“Please come and visit us,” said Riley. “And see the wonderful art.”
Art by the Water at the Beaconsfield Yatch Club:
April 26 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
April 27 & 28 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
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