The French Tour de France will Bordeaux today to do a 52 km route in the Bordeaux ' vineyards . They will go through the village of Margaux and will finish in Pauillac. What a luck... but don't get drunk!

The 97th Tour de France started on the 3rd of July and will end on the 25th of July.

The route today is between Salies de Béarn and Bordeaux. 198km .

Alberto Contador is still yellow jersey, while Thor Husvodt wears the green jersey and Anthony Charteau wears the polka dot jersey.

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity is the first Costume Institute exhibition drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. It explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 and how they have affected the way American women are seen today.
 
Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation. "Gibson Girls," "Bohemians," and "Screen Sirens," among others, helped lay the foundation for today's American woman.
 

This exhibition has attracted all the most glamour ladies of America

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The European Hous eof Photography ( Maison Européenne de la Photographie) presents , from 23rd to 29th of August 2010, the works of Aki Kuroda in photography. These photographies are realized in New York, and the city is in the heart of the topic of the photos.

Since the 30s, the Maeghts help, share work and friendship of the most important international artists: Braque, Matisse, Chagall, Léger, Miró, Tàpies, CHilida, Calder, Giacometti... Aimé MAeght ( 1906-1981) was a visionnary editor, art promoter, film producer and created in 1964 the firts Foundation dedicated to contemporary art in Saint-Paul de Vence.

Aki Kuroda belongs to the third generation of artists promoted by the Maeght Gallery. Aki Kuroda presents its works for the first time i 1980. He leaves Kyoto and Japan to discover Paris, and especially  the Montparnasse district. He choses to live there , near Yoyo Maeght, very close of the Arte prints ARTE. Aki Kuroda has got his studio inside the Maeght prints as well as in Saint-Paul de Vence.


                                      

Maison Européenne de la photographie
www.mep-fr.org

Produced in collaboration with the Matisse Museum in Cateau-Cambresis in the year 2010 dedictaed to France -Russia , the exhibition Lydia D. , muse and model of Matisse is presented to the Matisse Museum in Nice from June 19 to September 27, 2010, after having been at the Matisse Museum in Cateau- Cambrai from 27 February to 30 May.

The exhibition includes 105 works where Lydia is the model, including 16 paintings and 77 drawings , and gathers many photographs. The loans received - 89 works - some previously unpublished and all exceptional , from the painter 's family , many French and American private collections , as well as most major museums like the Musée d' art contemporain de Montréal , Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen , the Baltimore Museum of Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin , Ohio , the Tate , the Centre Georges Pompidou / Musée National d'Art Moderne / Bcc Paris and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris .
 
                            

Lydia Delectorskaya met Matisse in 1932, will assist him, become his model , his friend, help him until the end of his life.
Exclusive model of Matisse during the four years from 1935 to 1939 , followed by periods during the next fifteen years , Lydia is for him a source of inspiration , both for his paintings, drawings , engravings or illustrations in books . Lydia has asked for approximately ninety paintings and hundreds of drawings.

The Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence is organizing an exhibition dedicated to for Alberto Giacometti . It will take place from 27 June to 31 October 2010 .

The curator is Isabelle Maeght who has been interviewed by Sagaplanet last year. Mrs Maeght wished to exhibit works from the foundation’s collection and that of the Maeght family. These are joined by other exceptional works from international public and private collections, some being shown for the first time, to fully convey the curator’s intention.

While some early works and others from his Surrealist period are included, the exhibition will focus primarily on the post-war period and Giacometti’s stretched, long-limbed sculptures.

Among the 170 works in the exhibition are some 60 sculptures, including the iconic Homme qui marche (Walking Man). The Fondation Maeght is the only collection to own versions of this sculpture. They are all the more outstanding in that the bronzes were painted by Alberto Giacometti as opposed to the usual patina.

                              


While some of Giacometti’s sculptures are known and admired the world over, his paintings, less numerous, have yet to be discovered. They account for a significant share of the exhibition, in particular portraits of Aimé and Marguerite Maeght whose friendship with Giacometti is the central premise of this exhibition.

Paintings, oils on canvas, wood and cardboard, together with over 80 drawings, extremely rare painted plaster casts, etchings and letters will also be shown. Certain works and letters carry a huge emotional charge, such as Giacometti’s drawings of Georges Braque on his deathbed, or letters to Aimé Maeght.

Photographs and films, some never previously shown in public, portray the artist at work in his studio.

From the 9th of July to the 26th of September, the Rijksmuseum presents an exhibition of Jacques Villon.

Jacques Villon was a painter and graphic artist whose legacy includes almost 700 prints in addition to paintings. From 1950 onward his work earned international acclaim and his prints became popular collector’s items. The presentation features a range of graphic techniques that Jacques Villon used, such as etching, aquatint, drypoint engraving and lithography.

After his training in Montmartre, Villon succumbed to the influence of artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. Between 1922 and 1930 Jacques Villon produced prints inspired by drawings and paintings by contemporary artists such as Kees van Dongen, Pierre Bonnard and Vincent VAn Gogh for Parisian art dealer Bernheim Jeune. But as Villon’s work developed, it ultimately revealed a unique style that is seldom entirely abstract despite being strongly abstracting.

The presentation is built around the private collection of Mr and Mrs Van der Vossen – Delbrück, which the couple bequeathed to the Rijksmuseum’s Print Room.

The Los Angeles Lakers won their 16th championship NBA title 83-79 over the Boston Celtics on Thursday.

The win was sweet redemption for the Lakers who still had a bitter after taste following their humiliating 2008 finals loss to the Celtics.

The remnants of Italian painter Caravaggio (1571-1610) have been found in Porto Ercole in Tuscany  and identified with a 85% rate.

Caravaggio reportedly died of Malaria in Maremma, Southern Tuscany, which is a marshy area.

The research found that the painter could have suffered from Syphilis and chronic lead poisonning.

ROme presented an exhibition of his work this year and it has attracted 580 000 visitors.

                                        

American geologists and Pentagon officials say $ 1 trillion are sitting untapped in Afghanistan. If this is right Afghanistan may become a very rich country.

Large deposits of iron, copper, cobalt and gold have been found. Most of all, the large deposits of Lithium , a key elements for laptops and cell phones, are presents in Afghanistan's ground.

Afghanistan may become the "Saudi Arabia of Lithium"!