History

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...

Amongst the great and the good in Père Lachaise cemetery-- the poets and the artists, Molière, Delacroix, Edith Piaf and Morrison’s own great idol, Oscar Wilde-- lies the grave of the legendary singer of...

Pauline Viardot was part of the Spanish Garcia family, four generations of singers and composers who greatly influenced opera and singing in four countries for more than a century. She was a household name...

In the middle ages, walking the Latin Quarter would not have expended many calories. The Latin Quarter consisted of the area immediately surrounding the Sorbonne. La Sorbonne was a theology college created by Robert...

Centre Pompidou curators Brigitte Leal, Christian Briend, and Adrianne Coulondre have organized a spectacular exhibition for the maddeningly complex movement Cubism. Enormous, exhausting and exhilarating, the exhibit displays over 300 objects (art and artifacts) along...

Hotels were made for affairs. And where better to conduct an affair than in the inimitable, iconic surroundings of The Ritz Hotel in Paris? This was especially true through the febrile, uncertain times of the Second...

Who was Vidocq? Many cultures have legendary criminal heroes: America has the Western outlaw and Al Capone, Latin America the drug lord, Britain has Robin Hood, Japan the yakuza gangster, Greece the 19th century...

It’s hard to believe that January 20th marks the one-year anniversary of Paul Bocuse’s passing. Is it possible that it’s already been one whole year since this monument of French cuisine left us? But...