The Daily Norm

Jul 9

The Honeymoon Chronicles, Part IV: Cannes

Cannes. The very name inspires a thousand tales of glitzy summer nights spent alongside yachts overbrimming with champagne, of film festivals with the stars, and dining in the famous Carlton Hotel alongside the palm-fringed parasol-filled beach of the French Riviera. Having long soaked up the reputation of this celebrity hot-spot, we could not resist the temptation to pay a visit to the city, staying as we were mere kilometres away. And while our visit there involved several rather unenviable encounters with the feral French roads and the even worse drivers impersonating something akin to driving upon them, we were excited to arrive in this much reputed city, filled as it was with all of the thrills and frills of the high life.

Cannes sur la plage

The sophisticated life which brand-Cannes sells was obvious as soon as we arrived. Ladurée macarons sat alongside Dior which in turn neighboured Chanel, which faced Lacoste. Walking onto the beach, the famous domed silhouette of the Carlton Hotel glimmered in the haze of summertime heat, and beyond a rather grotesque film festival cinema building, the charming old town stood quaintly alongside a luxury harbour glimmering in the sunshine.

In the old town restaurants, prices were commensurate with the reputation of the city, and in the shops one quickly got the impression that a lack of money was not easily tolerated in this playground of the rich and famous. So very French Riviera, so very Cannes.

Old town Cannes

For us, it was a day of mixed emotions. We were charmed by the old town, with its pastel colours, soap-filled souvenir shops and a little church nestled upon a hill overlooking the luxury liners below. We were equally enamoured by the Carlton Hotel, or the outside at least, which we gazed upon with a knowing nostalgia as we remembered scenes of Grace Kelly and Cary Grant from our favourite Hitchcock film, To Catch a Thief.

But beyond these charms, the town was altogether too developed and too busy to be truly admired. True luxury comes from exclusivity, and the exclusivity of Cannes felt superficially imposed by its prices, rather than by the inaccessibility or unspoilt beauty of its location. Rather it was a location spoilt by development, by tourism, and by the ravages of money… the charms of Grace Kelly and the golden age of Hollywood seemed very lacking here. True, with money, Cannes might have its illusions still, but for those with less, being shut out on the outside is less fun. There simply isn’t enough beauty there to keep you enchanted for free.

The famous Carlton

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2015 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Jul 8

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My travel sketchbook: Poolside at La Colombe d’Or

Gouaches were not the only art medium which came with me in my suitcase to the French Riviera. Anticipating the ripening of artistic inspiration as soon as I entered the artists’ favourite haunt of St-Paul de Vence, I ensured that I always had a sketchbook to hand. And it was within the first 24 hours that I opened that very same sketchbook, as we once again settled next to the pool of the La Colombe d’Or hotel. With Alexander Calder’s amazing mobile swinging idly just before me, and with the old hotel building ahead bursting with its cover of foliage, I could not resist this beautiful view, and set to work. And here is the result… all conceived in my trusty Staedtler pens. Who needs a pencil?

Poolside at La Colombe d’Or (2015, pen on paper © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jul 7

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Art on the Riviera: The Fondation Maeght

There can be no doubting the significance of the French Riviera to the history of modern art. Since the time of the Impressionists, the Riviera has been inspiring artists with its incredible light and the potency of its colours. Renoir lived in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Picasso in Antibes, Cezanne in Aix, Fernand Leger in Biot and Matisse in Nice, and surrounding them a seemingly relentless flow of visiting and other artists came to the Riviera in turn. The result is an artistic heritage which is almost unrivalled by other European regions.

Amongst the many artist-museums which consequently pepper the area, the Fondation Maeght is amongst the most important. Located only minutes from La Colombe d’Or, the foundation was entirely conceived and financed by Marguerite and Aimé Maeght to present modern and contemporary art in all its forms. Painters and sculptors collaborated closely in the realisation of this Foundation with Catalan architect Lluís Sert by creating frequently monumental works integrated into the building and gardens: the Giacometti courtyard, one of the world’s most famous ‘in-situ’ works, the Miró labyrinth filled with sculptures and ceramics, the mural mosaics by Chagall and Tal-Coat, and the pool and stained glass window by Braque.

When we ventured to the foundation after some hours languishing by the Calder mobile of La Colombe’s pool, we were somewhat disappointed by the extent of the famed collection. Entire galleries were given over to temporary exhibitions, with only one room seemingly devoted to a permanent collection. However, we could not deny being impressed by the gardens, so sumptuously saturated in art, densely packed under the canopy of a pine-tree forest. There amongst the faded light, a labyrinth collated from sculptures by Miro formed unique and startling silhouettes against a stormy sky, and as the earth rumbled with a humid thunderstorm, the atmosphere seemed charged with the almost surreal atmosphere created by these sculpted forms.

More than 200,000 visitors come each year to the Maeght Foundation, which has put on over 100 monographic or thematic exhibitions since its opening. We were perhaps unlucky to visit when only a fraction of the permanent collection was on display, but for the uniquely conceived art of its gardens, it lived up to its fame. The photos in this post show the best of the incredible outside installations permanently on display.

Jul 6

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The Honeymoon Chronicles, Part III: Saint-Paul de Vence

There would be few who would have blamed us if we had never left the sensational tranquility which can be found within the stone walls of La Colombe d’Or. And yet the hotel is itself nestled against the ancient stone walls of the tiny village of St-Paul de Vence in the South of France, and within those mighty ramparts can be found a tiny little village so utterly picturesque that it was worth the struggle of leaving our well-appointed loungers beneath La Colombe’s Calder mobile.

While Saint-Paul is visibly ancient and utterly medieval with its maze of cobbled steep streets nestled within large protective ramparts, its reputation ballooned largely owing to the fame of La Colombe d’Or and the increasingly famous jet set of artists and intellectuals who stayed there. What then followed was the opening of the Fondation Maeght, one of Europe’s most significant collections of modern art installed in a museum created by Marguerite and Aimé Maeght just up the road from La Colombe d’Or. Consequently, with some of the most important art of the modern era on its doorstep, it is no wonder that the fame of St-Paul has magnified, nor indeed that the village itself has become a mainstay of art. For besides the usual offerings of Provençal soaps and local olive oils, the village is crammed full of art galleries.

St-Paul is a tiny village with a little church located at the peak of the hill, and the remainder of the streets spiralling around downwards from that centre point. It was a place in which to stroll, and photograph; to soak in the ambient shady streets filled with little shop signs and flowers; to peruse the little shop windows and the multi-coloured offerings of the art galleries; and to breathe in the local perfumes of lavender and soap. And with the village right on our doorstep, we made good use of St-Paul as a destination to shop, stroll and dine. Here are some of the photos I made during our time in the town.

Jul 3

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The Honeymoon Chronicles, Part II: Calder’s Pool

On Wednesday I told you all about the earthly paradise that is La Colombe d’Or, and yesterday I shared my first artwork inspired by this epicentre of the arts. And yet I would do La Colombe an injustice if I stopped there. For combine my relentless enthusiasm for all things Mediterranean, with my love of art, and my complete obsession with the effect of light on water, and ripples, and you will be unsurprised that during our stay at that little Provençal Inn, I fell head over heels in love with the swimming pool which languishes at the centre of the hotel.

Surrounded on three sides by the old stone residences which make up the charming accommodation of La Colombe, and on the other with a spectacular view of the rolling hills around St-Paul de Vence, the swimming pool benefits from lush planting, cypress trees clipped into perfectly curvaceous almost anthropomorphic forms, ancient ceramic pots overflowing with palms and flowers, and quaint wooden loungers each fitted with a distinctive apricot cushion for the ultimate in comfort.

But above all of the charms of this magical pool is the original art which surrounds it. On the one side, a dark contemplative piece by contemporary geometric artist Sean Scully sounds all wrong on paper, but the dark colours perfectly complement the zing of orange of the sun loungers lined up against it. Opposite, the bird mosaic by Georges Braque fits perfectly harmoniously with the lush vegetation surrounding it, peeking out from behind the cypress trees as though wary of the tourists taking their places alongside the pool. And best of all – that stunning Alexander Calder mobile, whose fast metal arms swing slowly and silently in the still Riviera air, and whose base stands majestically on the water’s edge.

All combined like the colours mixed on an artist’s palette in ripples moving across the delicate green waters whose depths were punctuated with light manifested in every shade of cerulean blue and forest green. I became fascinated, dazzled by the interplay of colour on the water, and took so many photos that a post dedicated to this phenomenon of La Colombe d’Or was a must.

Jul 2

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The Honeymoon Suite I: Bedroom at La Colombe d’Or

I knew that staying at La Colombe d’Or would inspire me. It wasn’t just that it happens to be stationed in one of the most exquisite locations in all of the French Riviera, but it has also inspired countless of the world’s most famous modern artists, and I wasn’t going to be the exception. So armed with my handy box of gouache paints, brushes and using the Colombe d’Or’s ashtray for water (sorry Colombe!) I set about painting what most inspired me. And from the very first morning, when I awoke to find light flooding into our bedroom, the rays dancing and undulating as they reflected across from the swimming pool right outside the room, I knew what I would have to paint.

The work which resulted is this one, the first in my Honeymoon Suite series. The painting depicts not only the effect of the light entering through a quaint wooden window into our pastel-coloured room, but also the proximity of the Alexander Calder mobile, and the Braque mosaic, just outside our room, which never failed to excite me. In the foreground is the little desk which I used to paint this very same painting, breathing the cypress-perfumed air which wafted through the window as I did so.

Honeymoon Suite I: Bedroom at La Colombe d’Or (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, gouache on paper)

Like so many artists who went before me, I could have stayed in the Colombe d’Or to paint forever.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown 2000-2015. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included on this website without express and written permission from Nicholas de Lacy-Brown is strictly prohibited. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jul 1

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The Honeymoon Chronicles, Part I: La Colombe d’Or

To say that my wedding and the honeymoon which followed was a whirlwind of emotions would be no exaggeration. Within minutes of cutting our sensational ombre wedding cake in Chelsea, we were whisked off in the old fashioned style, straight to our honeymoon, leaving our guests behind, and sadly no tied up cans trailing our vehicle. Our destination was the French Riviera, and with only further wedding cake to keep post-wedding hangovers at bay, we tried to prepare ourselves mentally for this further change in circumstances as we were whisked through the night to the South of France.

Our arrival in the tiny village of Saint-Paul de Vence near Nice could not have been more different from the city we had departed. Utterly at peace, with a distinctive fragrance of pines and cypresses freshening the air. As darkness had already descended, the village was permeated by little yellow street lamps, subtly illuminating the central plaza where pétanque balls lay in wait for the following day’s play. And amidst the darkness, one sign glowed more than any other: Lighting a golden dove on a blue and yellow sky, it was the sign of La Colombe d’Or – we had arrived.

Our bedroom at La Colombe d’Or

La Colombe d’Or (the golden dove) is a legendary destination in the South of France. First opened in the 1920s by Paul and Baptistine Roux, it began life as a quaint little inn nestled against the magnificent ancient ramparts of the village of Saint-Paul de Vence. Its stunning garden terrace abundant in shady fig trees together with its cosy restaurant interior soon began to attract a faithful clientele, and as the French Riviera became progressively more a centre for thinkers and artists, so too did La Colombe become a gathering place for the crème of the artistic set.

Around the pool and in the gardens

As the years went on, and the Roux family continued to welcome and befriend some of the world’s most famous artists and intellectuals, so too did La Colombe’s remarkable collection of modern art grow, much of which was swapped in exchange for accommodation and their famously delicious Provençal cuisine. So La Colombe d’Or grew, both physically (gradually subsuming neighbouring buildings) and reputationally, and its art collection today stands as one of the most staggering private collections of modern art you could ever hope to see. On its walls, original works by Picasso, Braque, Sonia Delaunay, Calder, Miro, Chagall, Cesar and so many others hang; its leafy terrace is dominated by a stunning ceramic mural by Fernand Leger; and its most stunning swimming pool languishes alongside a remarkable Calder Mobile, a mosaic by Braque, and a recently installed ceramic mural by Sean Scully.

Interiors, and La Colombe’s incredible collection of modern art

For any enthusiast of 20th century art, or indeed for anyone beloved of the utmost aesthetic tranquility, La Colombe d’Or is a paradise on earth, beyond mere description – it has to be experienced. In the unpretentious little chairs which are clustered on its restaurant terrace, one can see the ghosts of the famous writers and artists who used to sit there in the shadows of the fig trees Jacques Prévert, Yves Montand, James Baldwin, Pablo Picasso… In the unapologetically rustic walls and furniture, you feel as though invited into the warmest of family homes. And in its paradisal gardens, fringed by pillars and scattered with fallen blossom, and alongside that most sensational of swimming pools, you feel as though you have entered some kind of parallel world. Utterly at peace. This was paradise found.

La Colombe’s stunningly cosy restaurant terrace

And so in La Colombe d’Or, we happily stationed ourselves for the first four days of our honeymoon. And so the rush of emotions which had commenced at our wedding continued. It was to be the most sensational few days imaginable.

Jun 30

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Roots entwined: Our story illustrated

Two weeks ago I married my soul mate, and the man I am now lucky enough to call my husband, and on yesterday’s Daily Norm you were bombarded with photos of our ceremony. However, our marriage was a culmination of 6 years together, almost to the exact day of our first date in fact, on 16th June 2009, and from that moment onwards, I lived life as a man complete.

In celebration of our journey together since that first June date, I prepared for our wedding by drawing a little illustration of our adventures as a twosome. Inspired by the magical words of Louis de Bernieres in his stunning novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which were read at our wedding, my illustration takes the form of a complex interlocked image of our adventures, each stemming from the routes which now bind us so firmly together.

Roots entwined (2015 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined
together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is notexcitement,
it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.
That is just being in love, which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an artand a fortunate accident.

Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and, when all the prettyblossoms have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.

Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Jun 29

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The day I married my soul mate

I knew I wanted to marry my soul mate Dominik almost from the first moment we met. It was within a few dates that I knew we were two inseparables, so alike in our tastes and ambitions, thoughts and feelings, that it was like finding myself all over again, and gaining the best friend, companion and lover a man could wish for. We marked our commitment very early only – it was within 6 months that we placed eternity rings around one another’s hands on a snowy night in Montmartre in Paris – but it took us a further 5.5 years to seal the deal.

Getting ready for the big moment, and with mother of the groom and my nephews…

I suppose for us, the big step was engagement, and the marriage was only ever the cherry on the cake, or at least that was how it felt when we decided to opt on a completely secret, tiny ceremony two weeks ago, inviting only our most intimate family and very few friends, in order to keep our wedding small, both numerically and economically. For us it felt more administrative as we filled in the forms and gave our official notice. And when, in the days leading up to our wedding, people asked if we were nervous, I couldn’t understand why we were supposed to feel nerves, when on paper it all seemed so simple.

The magical moment, and stepping out into a confetti of peonies

That was until the wedding. In that moment, when joining hands before a Chelsea registrar, we looked into each other’s eyes, and placed the final wedding band on our fingers, suddenly it all became very, wonderfully real. The extent of our commitment, the magic of the moment, the utmost celebration of the most perfect union: the moment I married my soul mate. Now, looking back on those magical few minutes, my memories are flooded with the great surge of emotion I felt in that moment, the pride and the love, and the utmost and complete joy.

Photos, celebrations and a top-notch lunch

So for anyone doubting whether the US decision of last week, which legalised gay marriage across all states, was the right one, let my experience cast those doubts asides. Gay marriage in the UK has enabled me to commit myself not to a boyfriend, nor a civil partner, but to a husband, in the eyes of the law and before my family and friends. It has enabled me to bind myself to my one true soul mate, and in doing so share the same right afforded to everyone around me, whatever their sexuality. The world is finally moving forwards, common sense is prevailing, and equal love is truly victorious.

Rounded off with an incredible cake (courtesy of lady-aga.com)

Jun 26

Festival of colour: The Summer Exhibition 2015

There’s nothing quite like the rejuvenating power of bright, unapologetic colour to lift the spirits amidst an atmosphere of grey, and this is no more so than in London where, on a recent visit, the skies were characteristically gloomy and very un-summery. Heading therefore towards this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts therefore brought with it the promise of some element of seasonal rejuvenation, even if it could not improve the weather. But this year’s show, the 247th in the Academy’s history, did not just flush us with the spirit of summer, but with a festival of colour, never before seen at the annual show in such quantities.

The reason for this panoply of colour is surely its chief curator, Michael Craig-Martin RA, whose work is famous for its blocky poster-print colours with exact outlines and pop-art motifs. With such an artist in charge, there was no way this show was going to be boring, and any doubts as to the fact were quickly swept away at the entrance to the RA, whose usually beige monochrome staircase had been transformed into a riot of multicoloured stripes in an installation by Jim Lambie.

For those who dared climb what felt like a staircase of moving molten colour, a further punch of colour lay in wait in the form of the first three galleries, painted in bold magenta, blue and turquoise as a magnificently energised backdrop to a surprisingly fantastic selection of works. I never saw those lofty galleries look so rejuvenated, nor did I ever enjoy a Summer Exhibition with as much enthusiasm and high praise. For after years of continuous disappointment and what always seemed to be a relentless recycle of the RA cronies, at last we were presented with a show crammed with unapologetically figurative works, with paintings which exhibited actual talent (Tracey Emin’s usual crappy scrawls excepted), where superb print works were given a rightfully more prominent hang, and architectural models were actually interesting.

Here we had paintings of places and cities, of streets you could walk in, of portraits you could empathise with, and where there was abstract, it was playful and bold – accessible and expertly conceived. In one room, a superb tapestry portrait by Grayson Perry (Julie and Rob) could have stolen the show, but was well accompanied by a gallery of moving, inspirational works such as Elise Ansel’s brilliant take on Bellini and Titian (Feast of the Gods II) – another riot of colour (above, top).

Considering the multiple works in Tom Phillips’ “A Humument”

So many works pronounced that the arrogant age of contemporary art installations and badly conceived “paintings” is dead, from the many offerings of an RA favourite, Stephen Chambers, to the last gallery entirely devoted to the doodles of Tom Phillips, whose work A Humument, involves the almost total recreation of a long lost novel thanks to his reillustration and reinterpretation of every page. And by way of confirmation that this new re-emergence of a classical pictorial style is both correct, and beloved, an already abundant array of red dots was already evident, despite the early days of the exhibition’s season.

For those disappointed by past Summer Exhibitions, this one is not to be missed – it will change your mind for sure. The Summer Exhibition shows at the Royal Academy, London until 16th August 2015.