Former name | Mona Bismarck American Center |
---|---|
Established | 1986 |
Dissolved | 12 December 2022 |
Location | 34 Avenue de New York 75116 Paris, France |
Coordinates | 48°51′47″N2°17′41″E / 48.863107°N 2.294819°E |
President | Karen Altuzarra (U.S.) Anne-Hélène Monsellato (France) |
Public transit access | Iéna Alma-Marceau |
Website | americancenterparis |
The American Center for Art and Culture, formerly known as the Mona Bismarck American Center, was a cultural institution in Paris, France, that was active from 1986 to 2022. It was dedicated to the presentation of American creation and culture. [1]
The center was launched in 2011, based on the legacy of the Mona Bismarck Foundation, which was established in 1986 following the death of its founder and sole benefactor, Countess Mona von Bismarck. She was an American philanthropist who donated her Parisian townhouse and the majority of her estate to found the Mona Bismarck Foundation, as "her desire was to establish a Cultural Centre in Paris to enhance the cause of American/French friendship upon her death". [2]
On 4 July 2019, the Mona Bismarck American Center became the American Center for Art and Culture. [3] On 12 December 2022, it was announced that the center was selling the property, with proceeds going to the American Library in Paris. [1]
Located near the Seine, across from the Eiffel Tower, the hôtel particulier (French for 'townhouse') at 34 Avenue de New York was built at the end of the 19th century. The building was featured in a 1928 issue of Vogue. [4] It was reconfigured for Mona Bismarck during the late 1950s by French interior decorator Stéphane Boudin.
One exhibition of American art was presented each year, in partnership with international institutions. Exhibitions focused on a single artist or theme and represented a range of artistic styles and movements.
Notable exhibitions
The American Center for Art and Culture invited the public to discover American culture through a program of concerts, performances and discussions Archived 2021-05-09 at the Wayback Machine . The center was also often rented out for private events at night.
The program Look & Learn aimed to broaden French students' appreciation of American culture and art while creating a friendly environment where students could feel comfortable expressing themselves in English.
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Yousuf Karsh, FRPS was a Canadian photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.
American Impressionism was a style of painting related to European Impressionism and practiced by American artists in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth. The style is characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors with a wide array of subject matters but focusing on landscapes and upper-class domestic life.
Alexander Johnston Cassatt was the seventh president of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), serving from June 9, 1899, to December 28, 1906.
The Hôtel Lambert is an hôtel particulier, a grand mansion townhouse, on the Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. In the 19th century, the name Hôtel Lambert also came to designate a political faction of Polish exiles associated with Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, who had purchased the Hôtel Lambert.
Mona Hatoum is a British-Palestinian multimedia and installation artist who lives in London.
The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, at 2 Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of contemporary self-taught artists from the United States and abroad.
Harrison Charles Williams was an American entrepreneur, investor, and multi-millionaire.
Anh Duong is a French-American artist, actress, and model. She is known for her self-portraits, which she has compared to a visual diary, as well as portraits of significant art collectors and influencers.
Mona von Bismarck, also known as Mona Bismarck, was an American socialite, fashion icon, and philanthropist. Her five husbands included Harrison Williams, among the richest men in America, and Count Albrecht Eduard "Eddie" von Bismarck-Schönhausen, a grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. She was the first American to be named "The Best Dressed Woman in the World" by a panel of top couturiers, including Coco Chanel, and she was also named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.
The Child's Bath is an 1893 oil painting by American artist Mary Cassatt. The painting continues her interest in depicting bathing and motherhood, but it is distinct in its angle of vision. Both the subject matter and the overhead perspective were inspired by Japanese Woodcut prints and Edgar Degas.
Liberty Heights is a neighborhood in southeastern Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Its boundaries are Winchester Road to the north, New Circle Road to the east, and R. J. Corman railroad tracks to the west and south.
Virginia Oldoini Rapallini, Countess of Castiglione, better known as La Castiglione, was an Italian aristocrat who achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France. She was also a significant figure in the early history of photography.
Little Girl in a Blue Armchair is an 1878 oil painting by the American painter, printmaker, pastelist, and connoisseur Mary Cassatt. It is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Edgar Degas made some changes in the painting.
Gardner (Cassatt) Held by His Mother is a drypoint print dated circa 1889 by the American painter, printmaker, pastelist, and connoisseur Mary Cassatt. The example illustrated is in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and is a gift of Samuel Putnam Avery.
Mary Lee Bendolph is an American quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. Her work has been influential on subsequent quilters and artists and her quilts have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. Bendolph uses fabric from used clothing for quilting in appreciation of the "love and spirit" with old cloth. Bendolph has spent her life in Gee's Bend and has had work featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota.
Cecelia Tapplette Pedescleaux, also known as Cely, is an African-American quilter of traditional and art quilts, inspired by historians, other African-American quilters, and quilt designs used during the Underground Railroad to communicate messages to slaves seeking freedom. Her quilts have been shown in China, France, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and in other locations in the United States. A solo show of 75 of her quilts were shown at the Le Musée de Free People of Color in New Orleans (2013–2014).
Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Mary Cassatt. The painting depicts a mother and her child in front of a mirror. The painting provides a glimpse of the domestic life of a mother and her child, evoking religious iconography from the Italian Renaissance. However, portrayals of a mother and her child are common in Cassatt's work, so it is possible that this similarity is coincidental rather than intentional.
The American artist Mary Cassatt painted The Cup of Tea in Paris ca. 1879–1881. The painting depicts Mary's sister Lydia Cassatt in a typical, upper class-Parisian ritual of afternoon tea. Scholars have observed that Cassatt's choice to employ vivid colors, loose brushstrokes, and unique perspective to portray the scene makes it a quintessentially Impressionist painting.