The French Riviera of the 1920s and early '30s was a haven for artists and writers from the far reaches of the world. This book revitalizes the now-legendary tale of personalities such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Picasso, Picabia, Cocteau, and Gerald and Sara Murphy as they are caught between a desire for creation, the quest for happiness, and the looming darkness of World War II. Extraordinary images taken from personal archives reanimate the lifestyles and artwork of some of the most influential artists of the twentiety century.
The sunlight and calm of the French Riviera have been a magnet for writers since the fourteenth century. The Cote d'Azur has provided the inspiration and setting for some of the greatest literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. "The French Riviera: A Literary Guide for Travellers" is a reader's journey along this fabled coast, from Hyeres and St. Tropez in the west to the Italian border in the east, introducing the lives and work of writers who passed this way, from distinguished Nobel laureates to new authors who found their voices there. Ted Jones's encyclopaedic work covers them all: writers such as Graham Greene and W. Somerset Maugham, who spent much of their lives there; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Guy de Maupassant, whose work it dominates; and the countless writers who simply lingered there, including Louisa M. Alcott, Hans Christian Anderson, J. G. Ballard, Samuel Beckett, Arnold Bennett, William Boyd, Bertholt Brecht, Anthony Burgess, Albert Camus, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, A. A.Milne, Vladimir Nabokov, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Jean-Paul Sartre, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Louis Stevenson, Anton Tchekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Evelyn Waugh, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf and W. B. Yeats - and many others.
In this irresistible marriage of watercolorist’s sketchbook and traveler’s guide, Virginia Johnson lovingly captures the magic of one of the world’s most storied regions, the French Riviera. We walk the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Shop for handmade sandals at Rondini in Saint-Tropez. Visit the Madoura workshop in Antibes, where Picasso discovered his genius for pottery. Meet legendary characters like Pierre Gruneberg, a swimming instructor who taught Jean Cocteau, Brigitte Bardot, Paul McCartney, and many others. Saturated with the limpid colors of sea and sun, the dazzling greens of verdant gardens, and the rose and ochre of sunbaked villas and joyous with paisleys and blue-striped sailor’s shirts and the riotous look of a patisserie window filled with confections, Travels Through the French Riviera is a gift book of visual wonder, the souvenir every Francophile will want. But it is also a quirky yet singularly useful travel guide, whether showing how to order coffee like a local, plan a beach day at Menton, or hike the Cap Ferrat peninsula or where to taste the best ice cream in Antibes (at Amarena—try the mint).
The French Riviera, with its beaches, luxury villas and highstakes gambling, has been the world's favourite playground for more than a century, ever since a French poet gave this strip of land an indelible new name: the Cote d'Azur.
Discover a luxurious wine château and private residence in the south of France designed by the innovative architecture firm OITOEMPONTO. Near the glittering coast of the French Riviera, surrounded by a luscious cru classé vineyard, OITOEMPONTO architects oversaw the renaissance of Château Saint-Maur de Cogolin through an assiduous, four-year renovation. Using refined materials, they created a sumptuous and relaxing oasis that combines art, signature design pieces, and a sense of harmony both inside and outside the château. This volume traces the renovation, from initial watercolor sketches and photographs--reproduced here on offset paper--through to the finished private family residence. This exquisitely illustrated volume takes readers on an intimate tour of the immense reception rooms, bedrooms and suites, entertainment areas, and secret chambers in the vast 17,000-square-foot château. This reinvention into a splendid reception space of incomparable charm is the residence's most luxurious incarnation to date.
Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsey to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict. Featuring a sparkling cast of artists, writers and historical figures including Winston Churchill, Daisy Fellowes, Salvador Dalí, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Eileen Gray and Edith Wharton, with the enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart, CHANEL'S RIVIERA is a captivating account of a period that saw some of the deepest extremes of luxury and terror in the whole of the twentieth century. From Chanel's first summer at her Roquebrune villa La Pausa (in the later years with her German lover) amid the glamour of the pre-war parties and casinos in Antibes, Nice and Cannes to the horrors of evacuation and the displacement of thousands of families during the Second World War, CHANEL'S RIVIERA explores the fascinating world of the Cote d'Azur elite in the 1930s and 1940s. Enriched with much original research, it is social history that brings the experiences of both rich and poor, protected and persecuted, to vivid life.
Get swept up in the glitz and glamour of the French Riviera as author and filmmaker John Baxter takes readers on a whirlwind tour through the star-studded cultural history of the Côte d'Azur that's sure to delight travelers, Francophiles, and culture lovers alike. Readers will discover the dramatic lives of the legendary artists, writers, actors, and politicians who frequented the world's most luxurious resort during its golden age. In 25 vivid chapters, Baxter introduces the iconic figures indelibly linked to the South of France—artist Henri Matisse, who lived in Nice for much of his life; F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose Riviera hosts inspired his controversial Tender is the Night; Coco Chanel, who made the Saint-Tropez tan an international fashion statement; and many more. Along the way, Baxter takes readers where few people ever get to go: the alluring world of the perfume industry, into the cars and casinos of Monte Carlo, behind-the-scenes at the Cannes Film Festival, to the villa where Picasso and Cocteau smoked opium, and to the hotel where Joseph Kennedy had an affair with Marlene Dietrich. Then maps and listings show travelers how these luminaries celebrated life and made art amid paradise.
Discovering painting at the age of 40, Sir Winston Churchill revelled in his new pastime. He went on to produce over 550 paintings, with over 130 of them on the French Riviera. The fellow artist and Riviera resident Paul Rafferty has tracked down many of the locations Churchill used in Provence, an area the great man so aptly called 'paintatious'. Many of these locations are newly discovered and his 'fearless impressions' stand alongside to illustrate how Churchill captured them on canvas.
The author of the bestselling The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family brings her trademark brio and relish to the charming and fascinating world of the Château de l'Horizon on the French Riviera. The Riviera Set reveals the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of dynamic group was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties. After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth Bringing a bygone era back to life, Mary Lovell cements her spot as one of our top social historians in this captivating and evocative new book.
