The Custodia Foundation, near our hotels, is spoiling us with not one, not two, but three art exhibitions – Studi & Schizzi. Drawing the Human Figure in Italy 1450-1700, Anna Metz. Etchings and Siemen Dijkstra. À bois perdu, all in a gorgeous, historic Parisian townhouse. Wow!

Let’s start with Studi & Schizzi. Drawing the Human Figure in Italy 1450-1700. The Foundation is showing 86 works created by artists from the Renaissance to the Baroque period, taken from Custodia’s collection of 600 Italian drawings.

The exhibition analyses how the artists posed their models in order to draw them, the relationship between model and artist, the effects of shade and fabrics…

More info here.

Coinciding with the exhibition, the Foundation is launching its online image database, starting with their 600 Italian drawings. The rest will follow throughout 2020.

Anna Metz, born in Rotterdam in 1939, is a contemporary artist who only hit her stride really in the 1990s after turning 5°, when her children became independent.

The exhibition looks at the entirety of her career and show her evolution – for example, she made engravings in the 1960s, but last summer turned to etchings of landscapes after a stay in Spain.

A catalogue of the exhibition (163 pages, 100 illustrations, 29€) is available here (scroll to the bottom of the page) and for more info about the exhibition, click here.

Born in 1968, Siemen Dijkstra lives and work in Dwingeloo in the Netherlands, and creates astonishing engravings using a ‘reduction woodcut’ technique.

Each layer of colour is cut from a single piece of wood before being printed successively onto paper, with often 10 ro 18 layers needed to complete the image.

The result – often landscape images of the Drenthe region where he lives – is bursting with colour and almost photorealistic.

A catalogue of this meticulous work (196 pages, 150 illustrations, 29€) is available here (scroll to the bottom of the page) and for more info about the exhibition, click here.

Three great exhibitions for just 10€, and a beautiful Parisian townhouse to discover at the same time!

The exhibitions Studi & Schizzi. Drawing the Human Figure in Italy 1450-1700, Anna Metz. Etchings and Siemen Dijkstra. À bois perdu are at the Custodia Foundation (here) from 15th February – 10th May 2020

Open every day except Mondays from midday – 6pm

Admission: 10€ / 7€

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