News comes that a friend far away is dying now I look up and see small flowers appearing in spring grass outside the window and can’t remember their name W.S. Merwin
Tom was an artist, a creator of awesome stage pictures that provoked and delighted audiences around the world, but his most important gift was the love he bestowed on family and friends. He was a great friend: caring, loyal and generous, honest, kind and constant. I will miss him very much. It’s raining in Paris today and the rooftop chorus of mourning doves voices the soundtrack of a somber day.
Finally managed to get my butt out of Maury for a few days, motion triggered by an invitation from my friends Mike and Martha to join them for a few days among the swells of St. Tropez.
First stop, Arles, where I thought I’d catch a few photo exhibitions from the Rencontres and stalk the ghost of Van Gogh. Most of what I wanted to see at the Rencontres had already closed—especially disappointing to miss a show of early work from Joel Meyerowitz, a photographer I’ve long admired—but I did get to a survey of Latin American photography that was interesting but marred by a terrible installation with inadequate lighting.
Bridges Across the Seine at Astières
On to the search for Vincent. The Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arleshad a small exhibit of eight paintings of portraits of ordinary people and field workers from the Bührle collection that nicely traced the development of his modern style of short brushstrokes and saturated colors. Segue to Alice Neel, a “painter of modern life”, left wing New York from about 1940-1970. Mostly portraits, they are more artifice than documentary and led me out into the streets to resume the search for Vincent – with cocktails.
John Perrault, 1971 by Alice Neel
Andy Warhol by Alice Neel
Found both on the terrace of the Hotel Nord-Pinus: Cocteau, Picasso, bullfighters, and fashion designers in historical photos, a lovely Negroni in my glass, and Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night just across the Place du Forum. Tourists like me fill the streets, restaurant terraces cover the Place and overwhelm the statue of Frédéric Mistral, while the café at night offers an €18 Van Gogh salad, still this is a remarkably pleasant place to sit and sip and make notes for a new novel and plans to move to Paris.
Arles: Place du Forum
The streets of Arles are quiet on my way back to my hotel, the tourists have retired for the night and the ghost of Van Gogh is silent.
Arles
A drive north and east to the village of Grimaud, which was the seat of the Grimaldi family before they went off to Monaco and lured a movie star out of Hollywood to become a princess and live in a castle. The villa was almost as nice and the aesthetic shifted from Van Gogh to Hockney.
Villa in Grimaud
A couple of days of luxury with a group of accomplished and interesting people wasn’t hard to take.
©2017 Ron Scherl