1960-10-26 — Page 6

Page U

Paris

Newsletter

THE CHINA MAIL, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1960.

by Sam White

Mr. 5 per cent's treasures revealed-but France can't keep them

Paris.

61

CRACK-UPS

THE late Calouste Gulbenkian ("Mr Five Per 78 MARRIAGES AND

Cent") was a mean man. During the darkest days of the war in 1942, he left his wife and daughter in his enormous mansion in Paris while he took-up-residence in a hotel suite in Lisbon.

Their job: to act as caretakers to an enormous collection of art treasures which filled the cellars of his Paris home;

A misser

From Lisbon he set them queruious letters questioning the sums they spent on food and heating. Now that he is dead the collection which he hoarded Ilke

miser and which, until his death in 1935.

reraalned stacked in the cellars. is now for the first time re- vealed to public view.

J

from the

10 ristial n 22 makseum specially built to house i

Why this gratitude to the Portuguese?

They gave him special privi leges and facilities during the war against his promise that the collection would be theirs after his death.

Thu: toks of the French treasure in the collection is falt keeply here for it represents the bigget loss uf French art to this comtry since it lost the famous Wallace Collection 70

M.

Chaban-

The divares rate among French film stars now rivals that of Hollywood In Its wildest period Recent sfatatiica show that out of 78 French film star marriages 61 have cracked up. Only one in five has survived for any considerable length of time. Among those who have been divorced only once I find the name of Maurice Chevaller who is generally supposed to have boon a lifelong bachelor, but was in fact married to the dancer Yvonne Vallee • Among those who have been divorced twice there is Martine Carol and Danielle Darrieux. Jean Gabin and Madeleine Renaud have been married three times • The record is held by the pro- ducer Christian-Jacque who has been married five times

through an acquisition of large tions apparently continue estate which have been split up receive bullding licences. and soul in smaller ullotments.

for

The scandal arises from the fact that the sale of land building purposes has frequent= ly been made without way proper supervision by the local authorities and the authorities In Paris,

Vague

专门 the

The result provides a kind of cross-section of the Louvre แ the British Museum. IL comprises works, tracing thes ago, history of painting 15th to the 20th Century, in- cluding Rembrands, Velasquez, QUOTES: Fragonarda, Courbets and Delmas, Speaker of the Renoirs. Chinese jnde,

French Parliament: "Boing Caucasian carpeis ascient

in politics with General de and Roman statuary and coins. Goulle is rather like having A large part of Qis collection the Himalayas in one's own was bought by Culbenkian from living-room." the Bolsheviks shortly after the

Producer Raoul Levy: #ful the necessary safety Revolution,

sanitary regulations for the often wonder which Brigitte buildings pinned. Bardot hates the most- being pursued or not being pursued."

Among them, pieces of jewel- lery and furniture made for Catherine the Great The Paris collection is only a small part of in vast collection he has scat- tered in Lisbon, Washington and London.

The French hapect that the al Paris collection would be lowed to rmain here but dong negotiations between the French authorities and the adalnistan- tors

Scandal

A major re valate scandal is about to break in the South of Mance, following a fabulous building boom over the prast 10 years,

!

During that period land vahies have multiplied a hun- ares-full, with the result that enorious Fortunes have

of Gulbenkian's will have broken down. The result is that after being put on exhibition here the collection will be moved to Lisbon where it will made and continue to be mude

Baikling Beences have been granted sometimes building plans and the necessary vaguest drafts of projected

permits have in some cases been Pranted in areas which do nol (12'

A board

Written off

To

The bland announcement by The Times newspaper recently that M. Geoffroy de Courcel. one of General de Gaulle's oldest collaborators, was to be the next French Ambassador in Londen provoked great emotion here in official circles.

The fact was that General de

Gaulle had not yet decided on a successor to M. Chauvel, the present Ambassador, and The Times announcement created acule embarrassment for M. Courvel..

He may well have been on the short list of possible candi- dates for the post, bul The spcculators has Times report has had the effect been active in the region and that his chances of succeeding to enormous fortunes have been it can now be completely

made. As a result, not only written off, have parla of the Riviers coast boun scandalously

but thousands of people many of them planning to build a house for their retirement, have been defrauded.

STOL

ONE HOUSE!

COPSPLETE WITH

“If you ask me, they'll ‘ave trouble finding a fence for it!”

Royal Academy makes an exemption

"No Englishman should paint like that!"

FOR the first time in its history, the Royal Academy has staged a

memorial exhibition to a painter who was never an Academician.

The honour is richly deserved. The painter, Sir. Matthew Smith, who died last year aged 80, is one of the few British painters who can stand comparison with such Continental painters as Dufy, Vlamink and Derain.

Indeed, the exhibition proves him superior to a figure e Dunoyer de Segonzac, who not only enjoys a more fashionable international following, but also an honorary Academicjan,

Perusps, ir Matthew Smith's paintings were more provin- cially English in flavour, they ter School of Art, his father brought up in a happy bourgeots might be more popular abroad, telephoned to the Principal and family living in the South of

well imagine fordiga gave instructions that his son. France. gritic or dealer looking at a good was on lo account to be allow.. Matthew Smith and saying ed near any clussion where angrily, “No Engllohman has the

"wonen were posing in a state of- undress. right to paint like that."

by David Carritt

T

His subjects that Matthew Smith's career

There has

blessen

never

mon

study his copy from Ingres portrait of Madame Rivere ·and you will see how earnestly Smith

Was concerned with making a pure contour contain a solid, tangible mass.

As his art developed, Smith's use of paint became increasingly free. Delight in spontaneity meant that his best pictures appear as unconsidered as bird- soni, although

careful examination they reveal monumental substructure design. Occasionally his passion for the spontaneous caused him to produce something casual and nwkward, but

misa for every there were six splendid kits,

A freshness-

Fay

of

The first impression that the exhibition makes is misleading. "Here" one says, "is an exhube- decorator. rant.. colourist and A psychiatrist might argue What a pity he never designed

This memorial exhibition is silke,"

almost too rich, like a banquet As colour and decoration his in which every course has been pictures are indeed superb, but cooked with brondy and cream, they are far more than merely

For

the visitor who cannot decoralive.

spend long I recommend · re- strates, Smith was naturally in- where there are a

As the first room demon- peated sorties into Room 8, number of clined towards naturalism, to landscapes of exquisite fresh- conveying the weight and ness and delicagg. roundness and texture of things

disfigured, INCIDENTAL

INTELLI-

was one long reaction against GENCE: As far as I can see,

been ap English inhibitions, and there the only literary figure who Englishman

voluptuous- may be a grain of truth in such has not yet signed either they

with the good theory.

But his absolute Sartre

anti-Sartres of life. Women, flowers, naturalness is free of neumis the manifesto on the Algarian sunlight, peaches - these were or exaggeration.

his subjects, and he painted is 12-year-old Minou

them with passion. There is Drouet, the infant prodigy of French poetry.

The Ministry of Housing has now promised to investigate the scandal, but what is disturbing about it is that there are per- sisten: indications that specula tors who are known to have engaged in fraudulent transac-

wor

Or

-(London Exýresa Servtc03.

Now the cheers are for Macmillan

A$

S Mr Macmillan stood up recently to receive the tumultuous cheers of the Tory Confer- ence, he must have done so with pride and emotion. For what a long way he had come, the one-time Rebel of the Party who once likened Mr Baldwin and his colleagues to useless slag-heaps."

There he stood, the idol of the Conference, the. Demosthenes of the modern world unrivalled in the Tory Party, and apparently standing above his contemporaries like an Alp would were it put down in the Midlands.

What a proud record lay be- How will history hind him.

Macmillan? Before any prophecy, anist praise his speech at Nations.

Coming into office when the party stood at the lowest ebb of its fortunes, he had picked it up, revived it, led it, and won a resounding victory д the polls: and even as he stood up he must have been able to feel the laurel wreaths upon his head, placed there by an ad- miring world Press

If over a roun húd cause for Belf-satisfaction, it was Mr Mac- mllian, and he would have to be Inhuman not to have felt greal pride.

Dominant

Judge Mr

making

1 think I him for the United

Although its effect has already perhaps been rubbed off and although it is realised that Krushchev has not lost the ground which it was thought be had, it gave for a space the lendership of the free world to Britain once again.

BUT

WILL THEY CHEER HIM

10 YEARS HENCE?

by

Lord Lambton

Táry M.P. for Berwick-upon-Tweed

tional forces and do everything we could to you the cost of

This could have been of living, and make more efficient immeasurable value, had not the

the socialised nationaliseet, in- other policles which Mr Mac dustries, milian had Initiated in the last few years made the decline of this country in the world - evitable.

Throughout the country during the whole Election, Con- Hervatives spoke of the dangers And how strange, in a sense,

that would follow power with it wins to see the Tory Call their polley of speeding the end

Yot "Time has its revolu- tions" and it may be that ference raising the acclamation of Colonial rule. future generations will look to him. For standing up In the back upon the Prime Minister, hall were hundreds of members Yel not with the feeling of to- and Ministers

recently IL was the whose election Socialiut Policy which had veranse that is universal today. addresses one year ago had been triumphed, and io which the

The life of a politician is an exactly at variance to the Conservative delegates open life and a url life. The Socialist policy which we have cestalle applause. only thing posterity Judges by followed since.

is what to leaves behind.

The end...

Of all the Prime Ministers in British history, two more than any others enjoyed in their own lifetime long periods of leader-

The great orgument of the abip in peace time in which Conservative Party in the Elec- they stood as dominant and on was that Britain should supreme as. Mr Macmillan doce conserve her still-great position today. They were florley in in the world;

Have

Seen from the distance of,50 yours, it now seems likely that unless there is a great change in polley, this will be remen- bered not as the triumph Conservative Party

accepted principles,

Historians

of

How we failed to and the money to conquer space;

How the Conservative Party pressed on the demolition of its conventional defence forces fill they reached such low level that this country was un- able to cope with any of the petty wars of the 1960's, and had to withdraw within itself;

How all the talks of peace in: the great speeches of Mr Mac- millan came to nothing because he had misjudged the implic- able ambitions of Communism.

Disaster?

Perhaps most surprising of all to the historian will be the Piet that in the late 60's, many members of the Conservative Party suddenly woke up to and will point back that they had been deceived, to the fact of how the tremen that Britain's greatness and in- dous rate of taxation remained fluence were n In unalleviated;

thing of the Harold past, end that in Mr How Government expend!- Macmillan they turę rose unchecked;

How an ex-Socialist Mini ter was made head of the Con our Bond and the price of coal was

the 18th century, and Lor That although there was Baldwin who died 13 years ago, unrest and inturbance

slow

* Yet history has deaft unkind- Africa, the advance to self- ly with both, the ono being government muat ba hardly remembered, and the and manured, and only given allar's name yet standing as a whion countries were rondy tu reprentative of an srn of receive it;

hemolyámm Satict rulatudoso vrůlots That we must main led to the Bernd World War. siroth

put up, when 36 mfillon tane re-

and strong conve- kained unsold;

had Prime Minister who, while loading his party to unprecedented olce. oral success, was at the ma time leading his country to ir-

retrievable disaster;

**(Leridan Damour Berisos).

nothing in his background to ex- Delightful

how he managed to be so un-Engish.

Revived by these 'nfusions of

as well as the rich patterns Mediterranean air, he can return which they can make,

again to the gorgeous nudes and still life laden with peaches and... poonles,

Sparkling..

There is always something slightly abnormal about violent The son of a rich Noncon-

reaction formist industrialist, he saw ny

against environment, and one of the delightful things good pictures before he was 21, about Smith's painting is its

There is nothing like them in His admiration for Ingres English art and little so richly and when, In face of stroni utter normality. If one knew was profound and lasting, In- enjoyable since the heyday of paternal competition he was nothing about him, one might gres, with his fey, "sparkling line baroque art. allowed to attend the Manches- Imagine that he had been might seem his antithesis, but

TAK

SHOPPING SPREE

BY JAK

•

.

-{Lention Exprose Service).

“That's settled then, we'll have four hundred of the solid fuel failure, type, and six hundred

second stage ignition" trouble" ones."

London Hopetos Berele.