“A piece of artist’s jewelry, like a painting or a piece of sculpture, is a work of art,” says Diane Venet whose private collection of artist’s jewelry along with loans from galleries and artists’ families is exhibited at Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs (until July 8, 2018). From the early twentieth century studio artists such as Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Salvador Dali have made innovative jewelry reflecting contemporary art movements and themes. These artists used both precious and nontraditional materials creating one-of-a kind wearable works of art. Continue reading “Artist’s Jewelry, from Calder to Koons”
The Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood is world famous for its connection with artists, writers and intellectuals… and now shopping. For many years this part of Paris has been a stronghold of the “sans culottes,” a refuge to artists and a place for bohemians. Napoleon, Hemingway, and Sartre have all called it home. Descartes is buried there. The writer Oscar Wilde spent his last days in the quarter, at the small, run-down hotel called the Hotel d’Alsace at 13 rue des Beaux‑Arts. The legendary Ecole des Beaux-Arts—attended by such artists as Pierre Bonnard, Edgar Degas and Georges Seurat—is here. And the Place Saint-Germain-des-Pres is where students battled the police in May 1968. 
