History

Even as a child, I had known that my father had been in Paris during WWII. He had a book called Our Leave in Switzerland that featured pictures of American soldiers, but when I...

According to the gallery notes for Gagosian’s current Picasso exhibition, the late great art historian Leo Steinberg claimed that the famous Spanish artist (and infamous Lothario) did not paint a woman “as she presents...

Paris. Sunday March 31, 1889 at 1:30pm, Engineer Gustave Eiffel climbed the tower and raised a French tricolor on the occasion of the World's Fair. A 1,063-feet tall architectural masterpiece was born. It was...

Parisians associate the name Roland Garros with the French national tennis tournament. The week-long fête’s formal name is Les International de France de Roland Garros. It occurs annually at Le Stade de Roland Garros,...

Paris has two remarkable and unusual pagodas. Curiously, neither was built as a sanctuary or shrine. On the outside, one is bold and conspicuous while the other is discreet and hidden in a thick...

With deep grief and disbelief, we watched the fire that devastated Notre-Dame cathedral on Monday night. Thankfully Paris's brave firefighters were able to extinguish the flames and save the structure from complete destruction. We...

Paris has two remarkable and unusual pagodas. Curiously, neither was built as a sanctuary or shrine. On the outside, one is bold and conspicuous while the other is discreet and hidden in a thick...

In Paris last week, the city lost one of its greatest residents. Agnès Varda passed away from cancer on March 29, and in her passing, the world lost a legend and a titan of...

Fifty years ago on my first ever visit to the Louvre, I stood enthralled in front of Géricault’s vast masterpiece, Le Radeau de La Méduse. I had never seen anything like it. I have never been...

On the Avenue Circulaire on the outer pathway of Père-Lachaise Cemetery, a plain stone plaque is set into the wall with the inscription, ‘Aux Morts de la Commune, 21-28 Mai, 1871.’ (To the dead...

"There are no ugly women, just lazy ones." --Helena Rubinstein For the first time in France, the Musée d’Art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (MAHJ) curates an intriguing exhibition in homage to Helena Rubinstein (1872-1965.) Chaya Rubinstein,...

You plan your trip to Paris and have all the big things on your list to see. The Eiffel Tower, Musée d’Orsay, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre and-- if you are brave-- maybe even the...