When confined to his bed, Matisse would sketch on the ceiling by attaching brushes and charcoal to a long pole. As painting became more difficult, he focused intently on the sleek, stylized paper cutouts he had first started experimenting with in the 1930s, using scissors to create the sinewy shapes and swaths of [...]
The Criterion Collection, a video-distribution company selling “important classic and contemporary films” to film aficionados, just released Belle de Jour on BluRay and enlisted fashion illustrator David Downton to provide art for the cover and interior booklet.
Read the rest and see Downton’s other (sexy!) piece at Criterion Confessions. Buy
If your Valentine happens to be both a Francophile and a cineaste, I think s/he might be quite pleased with Universal-France’s three-disc compilation, Nouvelle Vague: Chansons et Musiques de Films. The set includes selections from soundtracks composed by Michel Legrand, Georges Delerue, Miles Davis, Maurice Jarre, Serge Gainsbourg, Bernard Herrmann, and on and [...]
Irma La Douce was a childhood francophile favorite! Just unearthed, the amazing storyboards for the movie’s animated trailer. See them all on Michael Sporn Animation, and at the bottom a video of the trailer itself.
Via Drawn. Make you nostalgic? You can buy a DVD of Irma La Douce at [...]
An entertainment phenomenon is taking France by storm. Bref. is a hilarious and racy TV series, each episode of which lasts about 1.5 to 2 minutes (as the name implies). The format is a high-speed montage of experiences in the life of the endearingly pathetic protagonist played by Kyan Khojandi.
Bref. depicts the modern daily [...]
Photographer Janol Apin does a series of photos in the Paris métro consisting of visual puns based on the names of the stations. Above: one meaning of boulet is “ball and chain.”
Auction sale of the Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of Fairground Art at Drouot Montaigne on September 28-29, 2011. Held by Cornette de Saint-Cyr with nearly 900 lots including a portable Alfred Chanvin & anon. carousel with wooden horses. The entire collection will be displayed at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre from [...]
We could wander these virtual stacks for days! So far, the Bibliothèque nationale de France has digitized more than one million works, including books, maps, manuscripts, images, periodicals, scores and sound recordings, and made them available for free to the public at the Gallica digital library. This is France’s answer to Google [...]
Guess all those Lipton commercials convinced someone he was the right man for the job…
Read the rest at Javert Update.
The Bayeux Tapestry famously offers a pictorial interpretation of the Norman Conquest of England (1066), a pivotal moment in medieval history, and the events leading to the invasion itself.
Read the rest at Open Culture.
If you don’t know Paris-based collage artist Matthew Rose, we want you to! New works on paper from his series “GOD & COUNTRY” will be available for purchase at the new concept store STORIE in Paris from August 30th through September 30th. Signed, dated posters will be available.
Join us at the [...]
Old French Fairy Tales by la Comtesse de Ségur reminded us of the books we used to get at the library as kids… Look to the left and you’ll notice you can download a PDF of the whole book.
Seen @brainpicker.
French artist Blexbolex has charmed the world with his playful cartoons and illustrations, to which he brings his wonderfully eclectic creative background — classically trained as a screen-printer in 1980s France, inspired by the whodunits of the 1950s and 60s, and having directed a German art studio in the 1990s, he blends elements [...]
We love this year’s retro BD-look poster! All the details you need here.
Diddy is a self-proclaimed Francophile: with an album titled “Last Train to Paris” and premium vodka Ciroc attached to his famous name, you’d think he’d be riding around in a striped shirt, by now, baguette in tow. But it’s precisely this French fascination that recently got the hip-hop mogul and his crew into trouble [...]
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