Entre Les Murs

de Lempicka Exhibit

I recently noted, from a poster seen in a local shop, that Boulogne-Billancourt is hosting an exhibit of one of my favorite artists, Tamara de Lempicka. The first time I saw a reference to this town I assumed it was somewhere well outside of Paris, so I was surprised to learn that we could hit it with a rock from our apartment. In fact, it's the suburb South of the Bois de Boulogne (little clue there) and directly across the périphérique from us. I was delighted to discover that we wouldn't need to take a train to see the exhibition, but we could in fact walk.

And walk we did, yesterday afternoon. The architecture is interesting in this part of town because while many of the buildings are relatively modern (the area underwent a renaissance in the beginning of the last century, changing from an industrial to a residential area), they aren't simply concrete and glass blocks dumped in the empty spots, they work with the other buildings and have clearly been designed for space and flow. The area around the hotel de ville includes a number of public building, shopping streets, malls and squares, and it all seemed remarkably livable. Of course, since the weather was perfect we were looking at it in the very best light.


The venue for the show is the Musée des Années 30, which is next to the hotel de ville for the municipality. The building in which it's housed is a cultural centre called the Espace Landowski, and it includes a number of resources, such as a library and a cinema as well as the museum. The museum occupies three floors, and we went through the whole place after seeing the de Lempicka show. It is a marvellous collection of art deco paintings, sculpture, and design, from magazine covers and furniture to art that records life in the French colonies in those years.


The de Lempicka show itself was terrific. Perhaps I've absorbed some Parisian arrogance, because I was in stunned to see so many famous pieces assembled in this minor museum in the suburbs. Obviously it's not so minor, within the domain of the art deco movement, for almost all of her most famous works were there. I'd seen half of the largest pieces before, reproduced on posters and in books. But as always, the reproductions don't quite capture the vitality of the original.

posted 18.6.06