MAXXI museum, Rome by Zaha Hadid Architects

Photography by Roland Halbe

Beautiful Hermès

Bryan Ferry, from Roxy Music will showcase his private collection at the London International Fine Art Fair

Bryan Ferry,  singer of Roxy Music,  and former model for Burberry will be showcasing fifteen unseen-before paintings from his private collection at the next London International Fine Art Fair, which will be held at Olympia in London.

Opening in June, this fair kicks off the Summer season, presenting the most broad ranging fine art and antiques in London.  The singer will be massively touring this summer : Lovebox in London or Sonar Festival in Barcelona for instance...

The paintings range in date from c.1900, including a superb work by William Orpen and a brooding portrait of the young Wyndham Lewis by Augustus John, to a little-known late painting by Walter Sickert from the 1930s. It's a good representation of the passion of Bryan for British art.

More info on: http://www.lifaf.com/

New Centre Pompidou in Metz, France

designed by Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines

This week, the city of Metz, the capital of the Lorraine region, in France  is on the European cultural map since it welcomes the new "Centre Pompidou".

It is expected that this new art centre will bring a "Bilbao effect" to the struggling region. The museum will also be joining a global trend towards big museum "brands" such as Le Louvre opening in Abu Dhabi and Lens, another economically devastated city of France. It will draw on more than 65,000 works held by the Musee National d'Art Moderne at the main Pompidou Centre in Paris, one of the largest collections of modern and contemporary art in Europe. 

I am really not a huge fan of the architecture of this building but I should be visiting it at the beginning of June and will give you my views...

More info on: http://www.centrepompidou.fr/

Skiing with Chanel...

I love this sense of humour

Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust fetches record $106m at auction

The beautiful painting fetched $106m at Christie's in New York last week. It had previously belonged to the late Los Angeles collectors Frances and Sidney Brody since the 1950s and breaks the record held by Giacometti's Walking Man I, which sold in February for $104.3m in London.

Another work by Picasso, Garçon a la Pipe, had previously held the record when it sold for $104.1m in 2004.