Galerie 1900-2000

Marcel Fleiss opened his gallery in 1972 with an exhibition of forty rayogrammes by his friend Man Ray. With his son David, they mainly dedicate themselves to surrealist works but also to contemporary photography.


Marcel Fleiss opened his gallery in 1972 with an exhibition of forty rayogrammes by his friend Man Ray. With his son David, they mainly dedicate themselves to surrealist works but also to contemporary photography.
There is a private club feel to the decoration by Christian Liaigre which is sober, elegant and as great as everything the designer creates. The menu, the numerous beautiful people and model-looking waiters all conspire to make this place ultrachic !
The most illustrious café in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. It was the favourite spot of the intelligentsia of the 30’s, from Surrealists to editors, artists and filmmakers and it became the meeting point of post-war Existentialists. There gathered Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Vian, writers and artists such as Ernest Hemingway, Juliette Gréco Brigitte Bardot, Roman Polanski, Françoise Sagan, Romain Gary as well as the world of fashion. Nowadays the Café de Flore still caters for a subtle blend or artists, writers, intellectuals, politics and anonymous people.
Created in 1926 by Christian Zervos, the Cahiers d’Art review belongs to the legend of SaintGermain-des-Prés. Picasso, Giacometti, Matisse, Léger, Beckett and Miro took part in it before it became slightly neglected. ‘Les Cahiers’ were purchased by the Swede Staffan Ahrenberg and are now headed by Samuel Keller and Hans-Ulrich Obrist and back to their former place and lustre.
Since 1958, the gallery has offered a vast selection of graphic and photographic editions of the greatest figures of the Surrealist movement, namely Hans Bellmer, Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dali, Leonor Fini or Wassily Kandinsky. It also exhibits Pre-Columbian art focusing on the cultures from Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Jean-Bernard Gillot is first and foremost a librarian, but he also infuses his bookshop with his passion for photography and travels. He also regularly organises exhibitions on modern and contemporary photographers.
Every day from 10 am to midnight and on Sundays from 11.00 a.m to 10.00 p.m, it is nice to stroll around in this multidisciplinary bookshop where there is a kid department.
The Galerie Cipango has been known since 1978 for its unique pieces. It regularly invites a seasoned artist -painter, sculptor, architect or photographer- to create one or several jewels that echo their own work. Each of these encounters is immortalised by signed and numbered limited editions.
This is a favourite of the art galleries in the vicinity and artists bring the fun to the place. You will also meet fashionistas and writers. In the spring and summer time, the terrasse is delightful for a drink and a Sunday brunch.
A hundred and sixty years after opening their first shop in Paris, Cartier has become the most famous jeweler and watchmaker in the world. Their collections nevertheless kept their audacious family spirit of the early days when the three Cartier brothers Louis, Pierre and Jacques, the founder’s great grandsons, would scour the earth – from India to Russia and the Persian Gulf- for the most beautiful gemstones, which contributed to create a revolutionary style in jewelry and watchmaking, mixing classicism and avant-garde.
« Le Vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui »…. Marcel Zelmanovitch has this poem from Mallarmé in mind when he opens the Galerie Diurne in Saint Germain des Prés, in 1982. It is a celebration of the now and present. What remains a possibility thanks to passion and energy. That’s how he was defining his project when it started: to bring back to the light a great craftsmanship, threaten in the 80’s by mass-production, through the manufacturing of one-of-a-kind objects.