The 1860’s witnessed simultaneously the climax and decay of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. The ongoing transformation of Paris by Haussmann, the launching of an extravagant new opera by Garnier and the inauguration in 1867 of the greatest World’s Fair to date maintained the glory of Paris as the greatest modern metropolis in Europe. Though resisted by the academy,  a number of brilliant new artists like Manet, Degas, Monet and Tissot celebrated modern Paris. Yet internal political opposition and the Emperor’s ill considered foreign adventures like the invasion of Mexico will undermine the regime which collapsed, shortly after Napoleon’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

This was followed by a year of chaos, the siege of Paris, a humiliating capitulation to the new German Empire and then revolution and civil war under the Paris Commune in the spring of 1871, during which much of Haussmann’s new Paris was bombed and put to flames.

The shaky regime that emerged out of the chaos, the Third Republic will prove paradoxically one of the most long- lasting in modern French history. The 1870’s will witness a period of defiance and rebirth as the wounded nation sought to reaffirm its power and prestige and continue the business of modernisation, industrialisation and pursuit of Empire begun under the Napoleon III. A new school of painting, that of the Impressionists will come to define bourgeois leisure and the new-found optimism of this era which culminates in the Paris World’s fair of 1878.

Course Schedule: Fridays 10:30 am – 12:00 noon. Coffee and tea served at gallery sessions at 10 am.

16 Sep.  - Gallery - The End of the Second Empire, 1860-1870.

23 Sep.   - Visit    - The Garnier Opera. Meet on front steps of the Garnier Opera. Métro Opéra (lines 3,7,8)

30 Sep.  - Gallery - The Commune and the beginning of the Third Republic 1871-1880.

  7 Oct.    -Visit    -  Musée d’Orsay. Impressionist painting.

            Meet in front of group entrance B. Métro Solférino (line 12) or RER C Musée d’Orsay.

                         Please bring for your 9,50 € ticket .

14 Oct.   - Visit    - Haussmann’s Paris: From Sainte Trinité to St Augustin.

                               Meet in small park in front of church of Ste Trinité. Metro Ste Trinité (line12)

21 Oct.   - Visit    - Musée Jacquemart André – house and permanent collections.

                                    Meet museum entrance 158, boulevard Haussmann 75008. Métro Miromesnil (lines 9,13)

 

Students will receive from the instructor a bibliography, printed chronologies and a list of historical figures.

 

Course fee: 120 € for the 6 sessions or 25 € for one session. Payable by check made out to:  Galerie B.O.B.  Museum fees are additional to course fees.

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Paris Special Exhibitions*and Walks with Chris Boïcos

 

The Historic Marais – A walk from hôtel Lamoignon to hôtel de Beauvais

Thursday 15 September, 10:30 am to 12 noon.

 

The Marais became in the late 15^th century the aristocratic district of Paris. Noblemen and high court judges built themselves the famous urban mansions that the French call “hôtels particuliers”. Largely spared by Haussmann’s demolitions in the 19^th century, the Marais remains to this day the greatest repository in Paris of historic architecture from the late Middle Ages to the 18^th century. In our walk we will be looking at the two greatest “hôtels” of the Renaissance, Lamoignon, built for a royal princess, Diana of France, and Carnavalet, the first royal square of Paris built by Henri IV, the place des Vosges, and two of the greatest baroque monuments in Paris, hôtels de Sully and Beauvais, the latter built for the chamber maid and confidante of Louis XIV’s mother, Anne of Austria.

 

Place: Meet exit of Métro St Paul (line 1) 75004.

Time: 10:15 for 10:30 am start.

 

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The Paris of Louis XIV– A walk from  the Place des Victoires to the Place Vendôme

Thursday 22 September, 10:30 am to 12 noon.

 

Though Louis XIV eventually abandoned Paris for Versailles he was involved in more building projects and urban planning in the city than any other King since Henri IV. The two classical royal places, Victoires and Vendôme, both planned by the famous Jules Hardouin-Mansart eventually became models for monumental squares across Europe. In our walk we will also take in  the Palais Royal and its gardens, built for Cardinal Richelieu and later residence of the King’s brother the Duc d’Orléans, St Roch the most fashionable church of 18c Paris on the rue St Honoré, home to the wealthy bourgeois, bankers and salon ladies from the early 18c to the French Revolution.

 

Place: Meet Place des Victoires in front of KENZO. Closest Métro Etienne Marcel (line 4) or bus 29.

Time: 10:15 for 10:30 start.

 

The Paris of Louis XV and Louis XVI – A walk from  the Pantheon to Odéon

Thursday 22 September, 2 pm to 3:30 pm.

 

The middle of the 18^th century witnessed a great revival of royal building in Paris reflecting not only the affirmation of royal prestige under the now mature Louis XV but also the impact of the Age of Enlightenment. Neo-classicism is the style of the age as seen in the greatest and most influential 18c royal church Soufflot’s Ste Genevieve (the Pantheon). A more paternalistic and enlightened vision is evident in the royal projects of the pre-revolutionary era like the new school of surgery (Ecole de Médécine) built by Gondoin or the new theater for the Comédie Française (now the Odéon) built under Louis XVI. In our walk we will also examine the residential architecture of the age notably the very first Paris apartment buildings on the rue de l’Odéon.

 

Place: Meet on steps of the Pantheon 75005. Métro: RER Luxembourg (line B) and buses 84 or 89.

Time: 1:45 for 2 pm start. Ticket: Please bring 8 € for Pantheon ticket (valid all day).  Fee for this walk is 20 €.

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Beauty, Morality and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde

Musée d’Orsay (13 Sep. to 15 Jan.)  Thursday 6 October 10:30 am - 12 noon

 

This a major and rare exhibition for France, on the “Aesthetic Movement” in the arts of late Victoria England organized in collaboration with the Victorian & Albert Museum in London. Aestheticism was a unique attempt to escape what artists, poets and writers considered the crass materialism, and philistine tastes of the industrial age and re-introduce into English life the values of beauty and the “ideal”. The show brings together major works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, William Morris and its followers and continuators, Whistler, Wilde and Audrey Beardsley. Painting, the decorative arts, photography and literature are all represented providing a comprehensive vision of one of the most creative periods of British history.

 

Place: Meet in front of group entrance B. Métro Solférino (line 12) or RER C Musée d’Orsay.

Time: 10:10 for 10:30 am start. Ticket: 10 €

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Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso... the Stein Collection

Visit and Gallery Lecture on the exhibition at the Grand Palais (5 Oct. to 16 Jan.)

Visit: Thursday 13 October 11:15 – 1 pm.

Lecture: Wednesday 26 October 10:30 am – 12:15 pm.

More gallery lectures are planned for 17 Nov. and 15 Dec. at 10:30am and 29 Nov. at 7pm

 

Co-organized  with the San Franciso  Museum of Modern Art and the New York  Metropolitan  Museum of Art this is the first major exhibition ever given to the celebrated collection of the Stein family, Gertrude, Leo and Michael with his wife Sarah, the first great American collectors of European modern art. The collection famously began with Leo’s purchase of Matisse’s “Woman with a Hat” (“ the nastiest smear of paint I have ever seen”), from the “Fauve” room at the Salon d’Automne of 1905. Gertrude became the most enthusiastic of the two and was soon adding to the walls of her famous ground floor apartment of the rue de Fleurus major works by Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Braque, Gris, Manguin, Bonnard, Laurencin … and her own celebrated pre-Cubist portrait by Picasso (“she will grow to look like it”). As prices went up after 1912 collecting was taken up by the wealthier older brother, Michael and his wife Sarah, who established in the 1920’s the greatest collection of Matisse’s work with those of Albert Barnes and Sergei Shchukin.

In our lecture we will examine all the major works on show at the Grand Palais but also discuss the history of the Steins themselves, Gertrude’s lover Alice Toklas, and their fascinating relationships with the Paris artistic and literary avant-gardes of their time.

 

Visit - Place: Grand Palais 75008 – meet by group and special pass entrance usually on the left of Grand Palais staircase. Métro: Champs Elysées Clémenceau (lines 1,13). Time: 10:50 am for 11:15 am start. Because of the great crowds it is important to be on time for group entry. Special price including ticket and headphones: 36 € or 25 € for those with special pass - Visit is limited to 24 students, because of great demand we require payment in advance for this visit.

 

Lecture - Place: Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos - 1, rue Jacques Cœur 75004 Paris.Métro: Bastille (lines 1,5,8) exit boulevard Henri IV. Time: 10 am for coffee and tea. 10:30 am for lecture.

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Berlin-Munich 1905-1920 : Der Blaue Reiter versus Die Brücke  Pinacothèque de Paris

(13 Oct. to 13 March) Thursday 20 Oct.  10 am – 11 :45 am.

 

This is a major exhibition of the greatest names of German Expressionism of the early 20^th century. The show focuses on the two centers of Expressionism in Germany: Munich, where the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group was founded in 1911 by Kandinsky, Jawelenksy, Macke and Marc and Berlin where the Brücke (Bridge) artists, Kirchner, Pechstein, Heckel, Schmitt-Rottluf, moved to in 1908 from Dresden, later joined by Nolde. The exhibition focuses on the connections but also oppositions between these two poles: an art of bright color and spiritual themes in the circle of Kandinsky, a more violent and emotive primitivism in the work of Kirchner and his friends. Both groups had an immense impact on later 20^th century art since both abstraction and later painterly Expressionism from the 1940’s to now have their roots in this immensely creative German interlude.

 

Place: Pinacothèque de Paris – 28 place de la Madeleine 75008 - specific entrance to be confirmed.

Métro: Madeleine (lines 8,12,14). Time: Promptly at 9:45 am for 10 am start. Entering this venue is always a little complicated so please be on time. Please bring 9,50 € for exhibition ticket.

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Cézanne and Paris

Gallery Lecture on the exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg (12 Oct. to 26 Feb.)

Monday 24 October 3 pm – 4 :30 pm.

 

Though Cézanne’s art is most often associated to his home region, Provence ,the  fact is he never stopped coming to Paris throughout his career from his first stay in 1861 to his last trip a year before his death in 1905. This exhibition focuses on Cézanne’s very fruitful relationships with artists, writers, critics, dealers and collectors in Paris and the Ile de France. His closest friends among the painters were Pissarro, Guillaumin, Monet and Renoir and one of his greatest French collectors Dr Gachet who also looked after Van Gogh in his last months in Auvers sur Oise. His oldest friendship was that with the great Realist writer Emile Zola and his first major exhibitions were organized by the Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard. All these relationships are evoked through the works in the exhibition, 80 major works from public and private collections, views of Paris, the country near Auvers or Zola’s house in Médan and the numerous still lives painted in his Paris studios.

 

Place: Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos - 1, rue Jacques Cœur 75004 Paris.Métro: Bastille (lines 1,5,8) exit boulevard Henri IV

Time: 2:30 pm for coffee and tea. 3pm for lecture.

 

 

Course Fee: 135 € for 7 sessions, 120 € for 6 sessions or 25 € for one session.

Except: Paris of Louis XV and Louis XVI  which is 20 € and visit to Grand Palais Stein exhibition which is 36 € ticket included.

Payable by check made out to:  Galerie B.O.B.  Museum fees are additional to course fees.

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*Please register for classes in advance to ensure that group visits are not full.

 

Paris Art Studies at Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos - 1, rue Jacques Cœur 75004 Paris.

Métro Bastille – exit boulevard Henri IV.  Paris Art Studies telephone: 06 86 58 98 09

Email : contactus   Website: www.parisartstudies.com