A Parisian Summer

In August I made my third visit to France. Interestingly, I seem to like France more and more after each visit. I spent quite a bit of time in Paris this go around and had the most relaxing time in the South of France in a small town called Hyeres which is more of a local scene compared to its ritzier neighbor, Nice. I’ll share more of Hyeres in another post, but for now Paris.

I stayed mostly in Marais and spent a bulk of my time in museums. My favorite was the Pablo Picasso museum which was a stone throw from my hotel. Yeah, the art was good but the architecture and the space was just absolutely stunning and quintessential Parisian. I could’ve spent the whole day just taking in the building. I did spend quite a bit of time sitting in the rooftop cafe, sketching and reading.

I strolled Montmarte and visited artist Suzanne Valadon’s studio at Musée de Montmarte which has an outdoor garden cafe tucked in the back of the museum. You can easily spend a day just reading and relaxing in the garden.

Strolling around Montmarte and having an artist do a portrait of me was a bit more touristy than I like but it felt fitting that afternoon while being aimless on a bright sunny day in Paris.

I saw two exhibits at two different museums which were next door to each other. Vivian Suter’s exhibit at Palais de Tokyo. The exhibit was wall to wall and ceiling to floor hanging of her unframed canvas abstract work. It was colorful, intuitive and earthy. I had never heard of her prior to my visit.

Next door at the Museum of Contemporary Art I saw a Matisse exhibit which was a compilation of all the art he painted of his daughter, Marguerite. It was just okay.

I was more intrigued by the exhibit of Gabrielle Munter’s work. I am familiar with her work and admire her style which is very simple, minimalist in how she represents figures, still lives, landscapes and people. She is known for saying a painting should get to the heart of the subject without a lot of fuss. You can see this in her work.

I was also taken back to walk up to some of her photography works to see that she randomly captured images of a Juneteenth parade in Texas in the early 1900s. She happened to be traveling from Europe to the US to visit family and was practicing using a new camera and captured the scene of three Black women attending the Juneteenth parade.

I spent some time in Luxembourg Gardens on multiple separate occasions - reading, sketching, people watching, napping. On all the occasions, I had no where to be, no itinerary to follow so it all felt spacious and rich in time and slowness.

Because I had so much time on my hands in Paris, I got to spend time at multiple flea markets without rushing about. As a vintage lover, this was a dream fully met.

In a subsequent post, I’ll share about my visits to writer Victor Hugo’s home, James Baldwin and Richard Wright’s favorite cafes and streets they lived on.