“Night Nurse Needed – Should be young and pretty.” This was the ad Henri Matisse placed with the nursing school in Nice, France in 1942. He was seventy-two years old and still working while recovering from a serious surgery. He required constant care and needed someone to fill in while …

Contributor blog post by Aixcentric: The former convent and college des Precheurs in Aix centre ville has been sold for 11.5 million euros to house an extensive collection of Picasso’s works – paintings, ceramics, sculptures – 2,000 in all. The Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso will be the third museum …

Contributor blog post by Aixcentric: Picasso’s work has been chosen to be the co-subject of the summer show at Aix’s Musée Granet. ‘Picasso/Picabia’ begins on at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence on June 9th and runs through to 23rd September.  It promises to be an intriguing juxtaposition of two very different artists working in …

Previously published on Ginger and Nutmeg: The Château is certainly iconic in Vauvenargues a small village of barely 1000 people. Pablo Picasso loved the place for the isolation that it provided for his work. After his death, Jacqueline proposed that the castle become a museum, the village never approved the …

I have to hand it to the Musée Regards de Provence seems to keep finding interesting local artists to introduce to us all. This time, André Maire (1898-1984) was an inveterate traveller. He was very curious about people, civilizations and religions, and painted his impressions as he went. …Continue reading …

Contributor blog post by Aixcentric: This is a huge celebration of the linkages between Pablo Picasso and the Mediterranean region with exhibitions already organised in Naples, Rabat, Malaga, Perpignan, Venice, and lots in the pipeline. Here in Provence, these are the forthcoming exhibitions in the programme: Picasso et Maitres Espagnol Carrieres …

There were just a few paintings still to hang when I left Lourmarin in late September. Before departing—and two days before the opening–I popped by to see Jacqueline Bricard, proprietor of the naïf art gallery bearing her name and curator of the “Regard Naïf Européen” exhibition. She was in the …

I’ve just been to a wonderful exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. It was called Matisse in the Studio, and it shows how the objects that Matisse surrounded himself with appeared in his art. Henri Matisse was a collector: He had an array of vases, chairs, carpets, furniture, …

One trail always leads to another…and so my discovery that the cookery writer Elizabeth David lived for some months in a large house in Ménerbes far more associated with another famous name from the 1950s inevitably made me want out find out more about the artist Nicolas de Staël. Who …

Aixcentric is a bit in ‘catch-up mode’ having spent the summer in cooler climes. But on my return, I was very keen to see the work of Annie Liebovitz in Arles (on until September 24th). Firstly to see the exhibition of the early work of this important American photographerbut also …