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Footsteps of the Artists

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Footsteps of the Artists

Tag Archives: people-watching

Brothels and Dance Halls :: A Walk On the Steamy Side of Art

Friday, February 1, 2013

Posted by patwa in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Writers in Italy

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art studios in Paris, artist cafes, bohemia, cafe-life, people-watching, Toulouse-Lautrec, walk in Paris

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

No walk through the artist’s Montmartre would be complete without mentioning the louche side. Along with the tax free drinking, brothels catering to every combination and whimsy dotted the streets around Place Blanche, Pigalle, and Montmartre. Not much has changed in the 21st century, though the tax-free status has surely vanished. Back in the day, these areas were outside of the urban center so a devil-may-care attitude towards regulatory authority prevailed.

A belle époque facade barely visible at 72, Blvd. de Rochechouart bears witness to the passions and frolics of the gay nineties. Today, that address is the L’Elysee Montmartre, nightclub.  Opened in 1881, the Chat Noir, 84 rue de Rochechouart was a favorite haunt close to the brothel at 2 rue de Steinkerque where Toulouse-Lautrec struggled with the effects of the absinthe that contributed to his deteriorating health and possibly, his early death at 36. After the last bistro closed for the morning, he would wrest a few more hours of fun sketching and painting the femmes of the night.

An industrious tramp around the area reveals only a few facades, art nouveau colored glass windows and a vintage wrought iron canopy over a doorway on rue Steinkerque, precious few traces of those earlier risque tenants. Among the cloth dealers and discount stores offering cheap household goods and shoes, it’s possible to spot some professionals, but the ostrich plumes and silk chemises worn in the opulent privacy of a brothel depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec have given way to fake fur and fishnet on the street.

Brothels are not enduring establishments, so the nightspots that provided subject matter for Toulouse-Lautrec in the rue d’Amboise or rue des Moulins,  and in rue Joubert are long gone. Toulouse-Lautrec was fond of spending time in the Lesbian bar, La Souris, in rue Breda,  now named rue Henri Menticer. His many eloquent pastels of the women are at the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, his birthplace in south-west France.

The cafe-restaurant Le Grande Pinte, at number 28, ave. Trudaine, was founded in 1879 and was a neighborhood meeting place for many artists.  It is still a restaurant, Le Paprika.  In the 1980s, the place was called La Bouche Riche; names change, but the place remains.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Englishman at the Moulin Rouge by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.

When known as Le Grande Pinte, Andre Gill, Carjat and the future King Edward VII supped there and the decor simulated themes from the Middle Ages, echoing the fascination of the English Pre-Raphaelite painters and poets for anything Medieval. The main floor of Le Grande Pinte was a cabaret founded by Laplace, a former art dealer.  For a while, the cabaret was called l’Ane Rouge.  The Prince of Wales was a frequent and dedicated visitor to the brothels in the quarter.

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A Walk in Montparnasse

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Artists' Graves, Hotels in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France, Writers in France

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Walking Around Montparnasse, Paris

The name was a bit of a joke, a sly reference to Mont Parnassas, the highest point near Delphi, mythic seat of the god Apollo and the Muses, inspiration of poetry and song.  The topography south of the Seine is considerably flatter than Delphi, but the high-minded notion matched the aspirations of the writers and painters who scrambled to Paris to follow their muse.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that Montparnasse suffered the contractions and upheavals that changed parts of the right bank so radically during the 19th century.  When the boulevard construction directed by Baron  Haussmann churned neighborhoods on the right bank, Montparnasse was too sleepy to be included in the revamping.  The hidden neighborhoods, rustic stables and factory lofts offered quarters an artist could afford well into the 1960’s.  But then, the post World War II boom claimed low-rise blocks for office towers, shopping centers and transportation hubs, a process that accelerated during the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Some of the artists’ hideaways in Montparnasse still exist, despite construction of office towers, roads and apartment complexes.  Recently, a friend and I discovered an impasse off Ave. du Maine, one of those dead-end alleys lined with artists’ studios and galleries.  We were in search of a photo exhibition announced in ‘Time Out Paris,’ but the show was still being hung and not yet open to the public.  Instead, we prowled along the passageway, peeking into vacant studios, eyeing the one used by a floral arranging business and wondering what type of social pull it took to rent one of these historic spots. Surely, we realized, this was the same artists’ courtyard at 21, Ave. du Maine where Marie Vassilieff opened her studio as a canteen for artists in 1915.  Vassilieff served soup, dinners, fellowship and a helping hand during the terrible war years.

La Ruche, Artists' Studios. Montparnasse, Paris

La Ruche, Artists’ Studios. Montparnasse, Paris

Another remnant still standing is the curious building called La Ruche.  An early artists’ collective, La Ruche, (‘the Hive’) hides in the rue de Dantzig  (Metro: Convention, 15th arr.) a studio-refuge for artists and artisans.  The space was inaugurated in 1902 by Alfred Boucher who had salvaged small round wooden structures made by Gustave Eiffel for the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. The recycled wooden buildings were remade into miniscule studios stacked on top of each other.

Art Academies and Immigrants

Montparnasse was a neighborhood for art students, dealers and shops selling pigments and other supplies for the students enrolled in nearby art academies.  Henri Matisse opened an art academy in 1908 at 33 Blvd. des Invalides.  Matisse was a busy teacher, impresario and artists during those years.

The Colarossi School, established in the 1870’s, took over the Academy Suisse and moved to the courtyard of 10 rue de la Grande Chaumiere.  The Academy Julian differed from other art academies: women were admitted to the school and permitted to draw nude males in life study studio classes.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

During the years of revolution, hardship and war, Paris provided the flame of salvation for Europe’s refugees.  As the city of light and reason, the city drew immigrants from troubled countries to the east, people fleeting from failing monarchies, war and repressive governments.

Some left the Russia and the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I.  During the war and following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the floodgates opened to immigrants.  An international wave of immigrants from dozens of countries arrived after the Armistice in November, 1918 bringing artists, sculptors, writers and political poets.  The international community settled in Montparnasse. A list of these artists reads like a museum collection: Chagall, Dobrinsky, Epstein, Rivera, Matisse, Leger, Modigliani, Laurencin. Some are lesser known:  Indenbaum and the Polish-born Moise Kisling form the nucleus of the Ecole de Paris, the melting pot of all the refugees and émigrés.

Writers who lived in Paris at the time note in their memoirs that  Montparnasse was different after World War I.  The streets were lit up with

theater and cinema marquees.  The “Triangle of Gold of Montparnasse,” as it was called, was marked by three beacon-cafes: La Closerie des Lilas, La Rotonde and Le Dome.

While the big cafes attracted big spenders, the artists hung out there too.   When La Coupole opened, people wandered in and out round the clock.  La Rotonde attracted art dealers, writers, journalists and politicians.  Modigliani frequented Le Dome café intent on selling drawings to anyone with money.  Henry Miller caged meals from friends who willingly bought him dinner for his entertaining conversation.

Paris Cafe. Photo ©  P. Mikelbank

Paris Cafe. Photo © P. Mikelbank

The cafes became second homes for the artists and writers who didn’t have the space, seats or heat to accommodate clutches of friends.  Exhibitions were organized in the cafes to attract customers and newspaper attention.  The first exposition in a cafe was organized by Auguste Clerge, in the Cafe du Parnasse.  At just about the same time, a group of artist friends organized a show in Montmarte and in a Latin Quarter cafe called la Comete.  Cafe Petit Napolitain mounted a show called “Boite a Couleurs” and another show was held at Cameleon.  Once these art shows in cafes proved the artists could make a little money and the cafe owners would increase traffic, other cafes followed suit.

In due time, dealers snapped up the work of the best artists.  One of the most successful gallery owners, Berthe Weill steadily expanded her clientele, befriending artists and clients in the grand cafes. At first working out of her home, she moved through successive stores in rue Victor Masse, rue Taitbout and rue Lafitte. Showing women artists as well as men, she celebrated her 25th anniversary in 1926 when her artists held a huge fete for her at Dagorno.

Zadkine Museum, 100 bis, rue d’Assas, in the 6th arrondisment, demonstrates that even as late as the 1920’s and 1930’s there were areas of Montparnasse with real gardens, stately trees and outbuildings.  Cubist sculptor Ossip Zadkine constructed a folly in the backyard atelier, his sylvan corner in the middle of Montparnasse.

The neighborhood revolved around the Gare Montparnasse.  Trains departing this station headed to Brittany so it’s no surprise that the artists who lived in Montparnasse turned to the Atlantic for en plein air painting during the 1880’s and afterwards.  The Bretons and other western country people brought their fish and victuals to the city.  Bistro de la Gare, 59 Blvd. Montparnasse dates to that time period, with Art Nouveau features that gave it a place on the historic monuments registry.

 

Footsteps of the Artists: Mary Blume Observes

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Shopping in Paris

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artist cafes, beatniks, bohemia, cafe-life, design, feminists, people-watching, poets, Renoir, walk in Paris

Paris Travel notes from:  A French Affair by Mary Blume

When I read this charming book about living in France years ago, I scribbled a page of notes on places and people covered in her book that I’d like to know more about.  Though Blume was a Paris-based correspondent a while ago,  the subjects are timeless. I found contemporary information online for all the topics in my notes.

http://www.amazon.ca/French-Affair-Mary-Blume/dp/0452282039

A French Affair by Mary Blume

Down and Out in Paris?

Soupe Populaire on Rue Clément, near Mabillon metro, is a  cafeteria for the poor,  the homeless, vagabonds, nomads and those who can make a small donation. 

Places to Go

A vineyard still exists in Montmartre at Clos Montmartre.  And there are other wine makers growing the grapes in the city for micro production.  The wine  sold at Cafe Mélac, 42 Rue León Frot comes from grapes produced by vines embracing the bistro.   Jacques Mélac is the proprietor who makes Paris-grown wine with the “Château-Charonne” label.

La Balajo – Founded in 1936, it was once a bal-musette / apache bar, then a nighclub where Edith Piaf sang.  Then it became a disco at  9,  rue de Lappe near Bastille.

Paris Shopping Tips

* Dehillerin for the best selection of kitchen utensils.

* Madeleine Gely for umbrellas, Blvd. St. Germain.  Now owned by a different family than the founder, but dedicated to the same principles of quality and service.

* Tang Brothers, in 7 locations, are comprehensive, immense Asian supermarkets.

Some Parisian Creatives

Classic Vionnet bias cut draped dress.

Classic Vionnet bias cut draped dress.

Mme. Madeleine Vionnet invented the bias cut clothing trend in the 1920s, freeing women from corsets and constriction. Her fashion design atelier began on rue de Rivoli in 1912.  She moved the company Vionnet to ave. Montaigne later. During the 1930s, she dressed Dietrich, Garbo and Hepburn. Several declines and revivals followed, the most recent in 2009.

Thérèse Bonney was an American photographer who was an

Thérèse Bonney, American photo-journalist during WWII in France.

Thérèse Bonney, American photo-journalist during WWII in France.

active photo-journalist during World War II and lived in Paris until her death in 1978.  She documented the impact of war on children and women, sneaking into the countryside to report the horror of war.  Bonney said: “I go forth alone, try to get the truth and then bring it back and try to make others face it and do something about it.”

Painter Auguste Renoir is well known, but his model Jeanne Samary is not so famous.

Jeanne Samary, actress and artist's model. Portrait by Félix Nadar, 1877.

Jeanne Samary, actress and artist’s model. Portrait by Félix Nadar, 1877.

He painted her often between 1877-1880 while she sought publicity to advance her acting career.  A decade later, Renoir married Aline Victorine Charigot in 1890, with whom he had already had one child prior to Jean, who was born in a stone house in Montmartre, near Sacre-Coeur Basilica, which wasn’t yet completed in 1894.  Jean Renoir, the son, directed films and for a long time lived on a hidden, tree lined street in Pigalle against the blackened remains of wall between the old boundaries of Paris and the open hunting grounds of Montmartre. He died in Los Angeles in 1979.

Montmartre Up :: Pigalle Down

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Artists Near Paris, Artists' Graves, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France

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art studios in Paris, beatniks, bohemia, cafe-life, design, Dufy, painting, people-watching, poets, Toulouse-Lautrec, Utrillo, Valadon, Vincent Van Gogh, walk in Paris, writers

Throughout the Belle Epoque, Pigalle, the neighborhood at the foot of Montmarte hill,

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautred, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

was the place to go for cheap nightlife. Pigalle and Montmartre still have a reputation for providing any kind of excitement for hire.

Back then the village was a mix of local folks and artists, writers and noisy upstarts who wrote poetry or music or manifestos.  The lot of them were anarchists to the bourgeois. Down on the streets of Pigalle or high up on Montmartre, the artists’ eccentric behavior, erratic hours and street parties were tolerated, even encouraged.  Who was to stop them, anyway?

Gaining definition after the Revolution, Montmartre was created a jurisdiction in 1790 with 400 residents. By 1857 there were 36,000 citizens in the village and it was annexed by Paris three years later, in 1860. Baron Haussmann’s grand boulevards opened the densely populated urban areas of the city below and made public transit feasible. But the steep hill of Montmartre  remained relatively untouched until construction on Sacre-Coeur Basilica began in 1875. The economic constraints and political disarray left after the Franco-Prussion War and the Paris Commune in 1871 played a role in slowing down the hell-bent passions of artists lured to Montmartre.  Later in the 20th century, after World War II, visitors to the massive Basilica with the striking mosque-like towers and bulbous white dome spilled into the artist’s quarter of Montmarte, bringing the by-products of tourism with them.

The streets were narrow and twisting, lined with worker’s houses and small shops. Even today, Montmarte’s alleys and streets defy a grid system, curving to fit topography or the clusters of former farm houses. The neighborhood was changed radically by the end of the first world war when the cathedral was completed.

Artists and budding photographers searched for village characters as subjects. Montmarte magnified the simple country life with the noble windmills and rustic villagers. Above the city, away from the bourgeoisie,  Montmarte also  embraced 19th century sexual libertine mores in the free-wheeling cabarets filled with comely jeune filles.

In Hippolyte Bayard’s photographs, the most extensive visual record of mid-19th century Montmarte available, the windmills dominate the horizon. Green patches are squeezed between rustic shuttered houses, shops and music halls. Laundry hangs out of upper windows. The white dust from the quarry covers the cobblestones.

To follow the footsteps of the 19th and early 20th century artists in Montmarte, start at the vineyard, rue des Saules and rue St. Vincent. The same vines were there when Vincent Van Gogh trudged up the hill to his favorite dance hall in the rue Rustique. And when the dwarf legged Toulouse-Lautrec stumbled along, tapping his cane on the paving stones, ears filled with brassy cabaret notes of the Moulin de la Galette or the Moulin Rouge, the scent of the sweating can-can girls in his nose.  A plaque in the vineyard honors Poulbot (1879-1946) who painted the children who tended the vines.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

Push open the door at 22, rue de Saules. Imagine the racket at the Lapin Agile a hundred years ago! Glasses clink, palms slap wooden tables, hoots of laughter, songs born in a surfeit of drink and rebellion.  And what a mix of languages – French, Italian, English, German, Catalan, Dutch, Russian.

Inside, Andre Gill decorated the walls with paintings and posters about the crimes of Troppman, a Second Empire renegade, who became a popular hero.  Outside, the old sign of an amusing rabbit jumping into a cookpot and holding a bottle of wine has endured till this day. With so many writers and artists, some of whom called themselves the Apaches in sympathy with Native Americans, with brilliant wordsmiths like Verlaine and Rimbaud hanging out there, we can assume jokes and stories flew fast.  Huddled at a corner table, they might kid the barmaid: Was the owner Madame Adele,  Monsieur Gill’s agile rabbit, or he, her’s?

Aristide Bruant, the innovative singer, journalist, publisher and activist, bought the cabaret in 1903.  Not long afterwards, customers flocked to Lapin Agile from Cabaret Zut in neighboring Place Emile Goudeau, Bruant also persuaded the famous Frede away from Zut to work at the Lapin Agile.   The artists frequented places where they knew they could speak freely and run a line of credit.

The Bateau-Lavoir, which burned in 1970, but has been restored, contained several artists’ studios.  Picasso, Brraque, Gris and others worked there and the site is considered the birthplace of Cubism.  Picasso and his Spanish friends and anarchists carried on the boho tradition in Montmartre until WWI with a cast of characters that included the writers Max Jacob and Apollinaire.  Early in his career, Picasso painted on the walls of Lapin Agile; did he talk the owner into settling a bar bill with a mural?

Artists met their models through their friends and congregated in the guinguettes and cafes.  An enterprising young lady in need of employment might plant herself in a cafe and ‘interview’ prospective employers.

One such mademoiselle was Suzanne Valadon, a part time model beginning to try her hand at painting. Suzanne cut a unique path through the established method of learning to paint; she did not hunch over a palate in the Louvre copying the canvases of great painters past. Following her instincts, she developed a strong individual hand. Degas admired her early drawings and the two artists became life-long friends.

Valadon had been an acrobatic dancer, but a fall that injured her back cut short that career. Her first serious modeling assignment was for Puvis de Chavannes. Work with Renoir followed. Both met her at the Cabaret des Assassins (later, the Lapin Agile).

Maurice Utrillo Tomb, St. Vincent Cemetery, Montmartre

Maurice Utrillo Tomb, St. Vincent Cemetery, Montmartre

Valadon herself was a child of Montmartre and grew up on Blvd. Rochechouart. Crossing Montmartre to see friends, visit her studio, buy food and supplies, sometimes she took the quickest route and cut through the small Cemetery of St. Vincent where her artist son Maurice Utrillo would be buried in 1955.

Montmartre’s church of St. Peter, at Place du Tertre, founded as a monastery during the Middle Ages, has a cornerstone laid in 1133 by Dame Adelaide of Savoie, Queen of France and wife of King Louis VI. Over the centuries, the church has been a Benedictine Abbey and a parish church. Architectural enrichments include Roman columns, remnants from a temple that likely once graced the site, vaulting from the 1400’s and Romanesque walls with stained glass windows. St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is believed to have vowed to create the order while in this church. A tile plaque near the entrance honors “Notre Dame de Montmartre, Notre Dame de Beaute, patronne des artistes.”

The church holds much of Suzanne Valadon’s history. Like many French women of her time and class, she was seriously devout and attended mass daily during the last decades of her life. Her funeral procession left from St. Peter’s.

Whatever her early indiscretions, Valadon drank deeply of life’s pleasures and used her talents wisely. Through the early years of the 20th century, mother and son lived in rue Tourlaque where Toulouse-Lautrec had a studio for some time.  Some say the Toulouse-Lautrec and Valadon were lovers, more likely they were devoted friends.

Antique postcard of 12 rue Cortot, Montmartre.

Antique postcard of 12 rue Cortot, Montmartre.

By the mid 1920’s, Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon, and the rest of their family lived at 12 rue Cortot, now the Museum of Montmartre.  Paintings and memorabilia in the museum show the life of an artist in the quarter and especially as it played out in cafes and cabarets.

Many artists lived or worked at 12 rue Cortot over the decades, including Renoir and Emile Bernard and later, the fauvist painter Raoul Dufy.  Emile Bernard never achieved the popularity or fame of his colleagues, though he started painting under Fernand Cormon’s direction and befriended Gauguin and Van Gogh. Emile Bernard painted with Gauguin during the summer of 1886 in Pont-Aven, Brittany and with Van Gogh the following year at Asnieres where Van Gogh took a studio.

Place du Tertre, Montmartreen.wikipedia.com

Place du Tertre, Montmartre
en.wikipedia.com

By the early decades of the 1900’s, the artists and writers had expanded their turf, and many shifted to Montparnasse. Bohemian Montmarte of the 1920’s continued the libertine tradition.  Artists still worked there because even into the 1960’s, Montmarte rooms were cheap, an artist’s urban paradise.  Radical innovators from all over the globe flocked to Paris, every artist’s hometown.

Behind this simacrulum of artists at work there are remnants of the history of artists who once lived in Montmarte.  The rents are far too steep for artists to live or work there now.  And the vendors at the easles in Place du Tetre are mostly just window-dressing to create an artistic atmosphere to please the tourists.

Walking Resources – Map of Montmartre

Toulouse-Lautrec in Montmartre

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artist's Studios, Artists in Paris, Nightclubs and bars in Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Study Art in France, Writers in France

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19th century, art studios in Paris, artist cafes, bohemia, cafe-life, Degas, design, feminists, painting, people-watching, Toulouse-Lautrec, Utrillo, Valadon, walk in Paris

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Englishman at the Moulin Rouge by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, along with Maurice Utrillo, is the epitome of a Montmartre artist. He is identified with the lifestyle and painted the scenes and people that are icons of  Montmartre. He drowned his health in the pleasurable toxins so readily available in Montmartre.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithograph posters, paintings, pastels and drawings depict the dance hall girls, the chanteuses, the whores and waiters and their customers, the haute bourgeois or visitors from more tightly laced societies like England and the United States.

Breaking away from his colleagues, Toulouse-Lautrec honed his drawing skills and pioneered innovative techniques using empty space, color and stark lines, as bold as the subjects he followed so closely.  He loved the performers, the dancers, prostitutes and pleasure prowlers of the belle epoque.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/67.187.108

Paris Nightclub scene by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec

Early in his career he studied with other young artists with Fernand Cormon in the Cormon’s atelier-school at 10 rue Constance.  He met artist Louis Anquetin, who was interested in subjects that attracted Toulouse-Lautrec.

For a while, Toulouse-Lautrec lived at 19, bis rue Fontaine with Rene Grenier and Lily Grenier, a model for Edgar Degas who had a studio in the same building. The courtyard at 19 is still bathed in sunlight and there is a line of low studio rooms on the left. No official plaque reports that Toulouse‑ Lautrec and the Grenier couple lived there, however.

In 1887, Toulouse-Lautrec left Cormon’s instruction and took his own space at 27 rue Caulaincourt where Dr. Henri Bourges, a childhood friend, lived. Toulouse-Lautrec stayed with him until the doctor married in 1893.  A few years later, when Toulouse-Lautrec’s health was clearly declining, his mother rented an apartment in Rue de Douai to give him a proper home.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

In the Studio. Academy Julian, Paris. by Marie Bashkirtseff, 1881.

At number 30, rue Fontaine, not far from the Grenier residence, Toulouse-Lautrec rented a room in 1896 while he painted in a studio at rue Tourlaque shared with Suzanne Volquin. The crumbling facade at  number 30 would have been a bourgeoisie building at that time.   The Academy Julian was founded in 1868 by painter Rodolphe Julian, and the first to permit women as students. American impressionist Lilla Cabot Perry and Russian-born Marie Bashkirtseff were students.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautred, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Jane Avril lithograph by H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1893. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Toulouse-Lautrec shifted his attention to the Moulin Rouge, 82 Boulevard de Clichy, when the can‑can became all the rage in the 1890’s. Dozens of can-can dancers still kick up a storm on the Moulin Rouge stage, billed as the “greatest cabaret in the world.”

Le Grand Hotel :: Opera

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artists in Paris, France Travel, Hotels in Paris, Paris, Restaurants in Paris, Writers in France

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19th century, cafe-life, luxury, people-watching

Le Grand Hotel
2 rue Scribe
75442 Paris Cedex 09

  • Location: Overlooking Paris Opera
  • Suites: 72
  • Standard and Deluxe Rooms: 470
  • Originally built 1862.

Le Grand Hotel. Here’s where the beautiful and the powerful have been living and loving it up for a hundred and fifty years. With the Paris Opera as next door neighbor, and Cafe de la Paix as the hotel’s “coffee shoppe” you know Le Grand is the center of a certain special universe. You could say it’s a symbol of French luxury dating back to the opulent Second Empire of Eugenie and Napoleon III.

Look up at Le Grand! You can muse with the clouds through the structural marvel of the glass pyramid that covers the central court. Skillful design by the renovation team that included architect-designer Pierre Yves Rochon transformed the 19th century court where carriages dropped off guests decades ago into a lounge/restaurant atrium.  Interior detailing and furnishings hint the Second Empire, but it’s all retro chic modern.  One expects Cary Grant to amble down the staircase to the sassy heroine waiting for cocktails below.

The dining rooms include the  La Verriere winter garden atrium open for breakfast and lunch, “Le Bar” and world-famous Cafe de la Paix.

Vintage beverage coaster from
Cafe de la Paix.

Cafe de la Paix has had some famous chefs work their magic in its kitchen, including the great Escoffier. Today, the cafe terrace and the restaurant at the back are the places to see and be scene while you nibble, sip and giggle. Because it is so very well known around the world, you never know who will drop by the great meeting place.

 

The concierge staff are deft at fielding odd questions or fulfilling travelers’ whims. Maids, room servers, porters and doormen were courteous and quick to complete their tasks.  The staff are professionals and the staff-guest ratio is high. Le Grand’s Spa with fitness facilities offers fine care from aromatherapy to floatation.

Flirting in the Literary Cafes of Paris

Friday, June 15, 2012

Posted by patwa in Artists in Paris, France Travel, Paris, Restaurants in Paris

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artist cafes, beatniks, bohemia, design, people-watching, philosophy, walk in Paris, writers

The Literary Cafes of Paris Welcome You!

Once upon a nineteenth century, the urban cafe was the place to be. Business, love, the business of love, and affairs of commerce took place in cafes, in full view of the world,  steps from the street.  Many of the cafes are enclosed now with a sound-proof glass between the cafe sitter and the exhaust fumes and passers-by. But inside, with a strong dose of imagination and a sense of history, the Parisian literary cafe mood stews the same scene.

You can sit where the greats once sipped, but to find where tomorrow’s ecrivans are penning, you have to plunge deep into la vie Boheme. Sometimes you’ll find a grimey smoke filled cafe just around the corner from the preserved banquettes that held the shanks of Fitzgerald, Miller, Nin, Flanner, Liebling or Sartre. Sometimes you’ll see a tweedy type with Hemingway’s bulk is still there, as I saw upstairs at Cafe de Flore, editing galley proofs with a fountain pen and sipping whiskey.

Interior of Le Train Bleu Restaurant
at Gare de Lyon.

During the cocktail hour at Le Train Bleu a gloriously guilt-free gilded expanse in the Gare de Lyon (20 Blvd Diderot),  people pose for each other killing time before a train departs, while covertly eyeing who is coming and going. A Japanese man dressed in a cape and suede boots converses intensely with a companion, a trio of German women dieted to fit their thigh-hugging cigarette pants tea and compare the day’s shopping victories. A Marlboro man in leather studies stocks or sports on an iPad.

Brasserie Lipp 1930s

Across town on the Left Bank, the neon and colored tubular glass signs of Brasserie Lipp advertise with jittery color. Just opposite Lipp is the Cafe de Flor, a good place to watch the passing scene sitting behind the broad glass windows.

Upstairs at Cafe Flore, away from the cafe society, a writer in tweeds sits alone and

Cafe de Flore

makes notations on book galleys with a fountain pen. He’s a throwback to the time when political writers crafted manifestos and experimental litterateurs scribbled their thoughts. To the time when Picasso doodled on matchbooks and Sartre confided his quest for a new lover to the understanding ear of Simone de Beauvoir. Cafe Flore’s menu includes sandwiches, snacks, omelettes and salads, some breakfast items, pastries and ice cream, and of course a variety of beverages, from cafe creme to a bottle of Dom Perignon.

Down at Harry’s New York Bar, sank rue Daw-Noo, (5 rue Daunou) it dosen’t take too long a leap of imagination to transform the hunched hacks at the bar into latterday Hemingways, Janet Flanners or Ben Bradlees — journalists and editors serving time in the trenches of Paris.  Pity them not.

Harry’s Bar has been a hangout for Americans in Paris for nearly a century, a place where they could feel at home, stop for a moment and toss back a bourbon or a brew.

I got there around three in the afternoon, after lunch, before the commuter crowd. Inside the curtain that screens the street, a shade of gold suffuses the room, the gold of money and wood aged by many seasons of cigarette smoke and whiskey breath. Harry’s is a bar where men can be men and women can hunt them. A long legged habitue scans the want ads in the Herald Tribune.  She could read it digitally, but where’s the atmosphere and fun in that?

At the opposite end of the limites of the downtown core is picture-perfect Place des Vosges. Said to be the oldest square in Paris, it has been restored and claimed by upscale designers. The wind is cut by the well proportioned houses that line the sides of the square. A secondary line of tended trees muffles noise froum outside the compound. Inside the square the visual range spells sophisticated life, and the calm is all encompassing.

Dozens of famous and extraordinary people have lived here. Madame de Sevigne, a writer and literary figure, was born in one house on the square. The houses on the square perimeter were residences of famous moneyed Parisians of the last century.  Victor Hugo’s house is diagonally across from Ma Bourgogne restaurant where steak and fries are menu staples.  Open every day from 8 in the morning to 1 a.m. the next morning, this is a restaurant that aims to please local sensibilities and visitors from around the planet. By 2 p.m. on a Sunday, French couples are already into their second luncheon course. Writers and students sit outside nursing a pot of tea and reading in the pale winter light reflected in the bleached red brick.

Hotel Sully
1901

Hotel Sully, a grand historic mansion, anchors one corner of Place de Vogues. Vaulted passages around the square shelter galleries, offices and ateliers of famous designers.

Le Procope Restaurant

The oldest surviving and active cafe in Paris is Le Procope (13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie).  The tracks of time and re-decoration may have made the restaurant-cafe more polished and slick than when Benjamin Franklin hung out there with his liberty-loving friends.

The cafe is still a place to pause and contemplate the world gone by, to write about it or just stare at the passing scene. People also pass time sitting in cafes to be seen, to feel part of the background life of a city, no longer a tourist or visitor.  The ticket for a seat at the edge of the world’s stage with a front row view costs only the price of a decently pulled espresso.

Address Book:

Le Train Bleu, inside Gare de Lyon, 20 Blvd. Diderot, Metro: Gare de Lyon.

Harry’s New York Bar, 5 rue Daunou, Metro: Opera.

Ma Bourgogne, 19 Place des Vosges, Metro: St. Paul.

Cafe de Flore, 172 Blvd. St. Germain, Metro: St. Germain-des-Pres.

Brasserie Lipp, 151 Blvd. St. Germain, Metro: St.Germain-des-Pres.

Le Procope, 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comedie,  Metro: Odeon.

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