I can’t believe it’s mid-May already although it feels like the height of summer with the beautiful weather we’ve been having in NYC this week. Not sure when you’ll have time to stay in and watch a movie or television show but there is a lot debuting this month in addition to many wonderful museum exhibitions and special shows open now.

If you missed my Instagram stories on Wednesday, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House is back in New York for the first time since 2019. The 22 designers chosen did a great job on their spaces, especially when you see the before photos that are displayed in some of them. The house benefits the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club so I hope you will make a trip to the Upper West Side to see it before it ends on June 6, 2023.

One of my friends posted that there is a new Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella that just opened in the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue. We’ve always had one downtown but the new store will be a welcome addition to the Upper East Side and a fabulous place to buy hostess gifts this summer.

The new Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is now celebrating the work of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld in the current exhibition Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty through July 16, 2023.

“Focusing on the designer’s stylistic vocabulary as expressed in aesthetic themes that appear time and again in his fashions from the 1950s to his final collection in 2019, the show will spotlight the German-born designer’s unique working methodology. Most of the approximately 150 pieces on display will be accompanied by Lagerfeld’s sketches, which underscore his complex creative process and the collaborative relationships with his premières, or head seamstresses. Lagerfeld’s fluid lines united his designs for Balmain, Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, creating a diverse and prolific body of work unparalleled in the history of fashion.”

Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 22, 2023 is Van Gogh’s Cypresses,” the first exhibition to focus on the trees—among the most famous in the history of art—immortalized in signature images by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Such iconic pictures as Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night take their place as the centerpiece in a presentation that affords an unprecedented perspective on a motif virtually synonymous with the Dutch artist’s fiercely original power of expression. Some 40 works illuminate the extent of his fascination with the region’s distinctive flamelike evergreens as they successively sparked, fueled, and stoked his imagination over the course of two years in the South of France: from his initial sightings of the “tall and dark” trees in Arles to realizing their full, evocative potential (“as I see them”) at the asylum in Saint-Rémy.”

Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: Along the Seine will open at the Art Institute of Chicago (14 May–4 September 2023) and then go to the Van Gogh Museum (13 October 2023-14 January 2024). It examines the impact of the Post-Impressionist artists who flocked in the 1880s to Asnières, in the northern suburbs of Paris, on the River Seine. Along with Van Gogh, they included Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Emile Bernard, who experimented with colour and the application of paint. With around 20 Van Gogh paintings, the show is curated by Jacquelyn Coutré (Art Institute of Chicago) and Bregje Gerritse (Van Gogh Museum).

Via The Art Newspaper

Young Picasso in Paris at the Guggenheim runs through August 6, 2023 and “explores a critical juncture in his artistic development and highlight a defining work, Le Moulin de la Galette (ca. November 1900), which was recently the subject of a conservation analysis and treatment project. This intimate exhibition includes a small group of paintings and drawings that show Picasso’s exercises in character study and demonstrate his evolution during this formative period of his life. All told, his forays into Paris left a strong impression; Picasso would settle there in 1904. On the precipice in 1900, the artist eventually surpassed his academic training to craft a singular practice reflective of his time.”

TEFAF, The European Fine Art Foundation, opened this week in New York and will run through May 16, 2023 at the Park Avenue Armory. It features some of the best art and antique dealers in the world all in one place and is always one of my favorite events of the year.

Frieze New York will return to The Shed from May 17-21, 2023 and will feature over 60 of the world’s leading galleries to showcase ambitious solo, group and themed presentations by pioneering artists and offers the opportunity to not only discover up-and-coming talent but also engage with some of art history’s most important figures.

Avedon 100 at Gagosian is a landmark exhibition in celebration of the centenary of Richard Avedon’s birth until June 24, 2023. The collection of Avedon photographs was selected by more than 150 people—including prominent artists, designers, musicians, writers, curators, and fashion world representatives—who elaborate on the impact of the photographer’s work today.

I was hoping to like City on Fire on AppleTV+ but the premise of rich Upper East Side people have a white party in the city on July 4th is preposterous. Then I found out the book on which it is based was set in 1977 which would have made a lot more sense. I also really dislike when every episode of a show feels like it’s variations of the same thing happening over and over. I didn’t completely hate it so feel free to give it a try and let me know what you think. I am still loving Drops of God on AppleTV+ though.

I tried to get tickets to Master Gardner during on of the film festivals but they were sold out so I’m glad it will finally be released in theaters on May 19, 2023. It focuses on a meticulous horticulturist, played by Joel Edgerton, who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate owned by a wealthy dowager, Sigourney Weaver. When he’s told to take on her troubled great-niece, Quintessa Swindell, as an apprentice, his life is thrown into chaos and dark secrets from his past emerge.

If you didn’t go to the theater to see Air, I can announce that it’s now steaming on Amazon Prime and is definitely worth watching. It’s filled with some fun 80s music too.

Kino Lorber will release Close to Vermeer in select US theaters starting May 26th, 2023 and is just one of two Vermeer documentaries to go behind the scenes of the Vemeer exhibition at the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam. The other documentary, Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition will be released in June 2023.

Those of you who are married will probably appreciate You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a novelist whose long-standing marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband, Tobias Menzies, give his honest reaction to her latest book.

Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love would make a great last minute Mother’s Day gift.

The next book from photographer Miguel Flores-Vianna will be Haute Bohemians: Greece on May 16, 2023. “This stunning volume chronicles Miguel Flores-Vianna’s photographic odyssey through the beautiful Greek landscape, showcasing historical houses alongside contemporary homes, united by the colorful characters who either live or have lived in these places—the ‘haute bohemians’.”

Chanel Beauty just released fifteen new nail colors for summer. I ordered Ballerina which just arrived today so I look forward to getting a manicure with the color this weekend.

I’ve tried all the self tanners and St. Tropez is the best I’ve found. That’s why I was excited to find this Self Tan Express Set which is perfect for summer travel so I don’t have to take my full size bottle now. I think the Self Tan Express Bronzing Mousse produces the most natural looking tan of all their products too. I use it on my legs a few nights a week so I don’t look pasty white when I wear dresses.

Bon week-end!

XOXO,

HC