For years, I’ve wanted to find an example of the original “carnets moleskine” that existed for many decades before the capital-M Moleskine brand was founded. It’s difficult to research online, as the capital-M notebooks dominate the results if you try to search any related terms. I wrote about it in a blog post a few … Continue reading 1898 Agenda Notebook
Imagine buying a vintage Hermès address book on eBay and then realizing it belonged to Dora Maar, the artist and poet who is best known for having been Picasso’s mistress and muse! Brigitte Benkemoun, the author of Finding Dora Maar, describes her process of deducing the address book’s origins: A-B: The first entry is illegible … Continue reading Dora Maar’s Address Book
Here’s another shoebox tour! This box of notebooks, one of the many that hold my collection, contains lined and dot-grid notebooks that I may find a use for someday, or at least like enough to want to keep. As with the previous shoebox tour, I first just looked at the box without taking any of … Continue reading Shoebox Tour: A Box of Dot-Grid and Lined Notebooks
I’ve written before about French fashionista Ines de la Fressange and her love of notebooks. Now she’s selling notebooks of her own design: You can see additional designs at her online shop: Ines de la Fressange
I don’t remember where I first came across the work of André Mare. He was a French artist who was associated with the Cubism and Art Deco movements, and his World War I sketchbooks are quite remarkable. No discussion about Cubism can be complete without at least some mention of André Mare. Yet even in conversations … Continue reading André Mare’s Sketchbooks
A notebook belonging to artist Larry Rivers illustrates an essay by Nicholas Martin about Rivers’ 1961 painting “Parts of the Face: French Vocabulary Lesson.” Rivers responded to the prospect of making paintings for a living by skipping town to Paris in 1950 for ‘a half year of deliberating whether I should continue a life devoted … Continue reading Larry Rivers’ Notebook
Some very intriguing notebook pages were sent to me by a reader named Khang, with this background information: A friend of mine recently sent me several notebooks entries written by Vietnamese and French soldiers aboard the Kilinski, a Polish cargoship. Following the end of fighting in 1954, the ship made trips between North and South … Continue reading Notebook Entries from French and Vietnamese Soldiers
A new collection of colorful Smythson notebooks: “When Smythson approached the graphic artist Vahram Muratyan to design a set of notebooks — carte blanche — Muratyan ran with that freedom. “It occurred to me that I could take those words — those French phrases that we use in English — and place them above the … Continue reading Smythson Notebooks by Vahram Muratyan
Isabelle Moreau makes some gorgeous notebooks and albums with leather and cloth covers. Not cheap, but beautiful! “Notebooks, photo albums or even agendas, discover our unique craft of paper shop items, handmade and 100% made in France !” See more at Catalogue : pick and customize your own paper shop products – Isabelle Moreau
These are rather gorgeous: “The Villa Médicis notebooks by Astier de Villatte are printed with beguiling photographs from the palace gardens.In 1803, Napoléon Bonaparte moved his exclusive French Academy to Rome’s storied Villa Medici. Since then, the Italian Renaissance villa that overlooks the ancient city has housed generations of creative minds, including Jean-ÂAugusteÂ-Dominique Ingres, Claude … Continue reading Astier de Villatte Villa Medici Notebooks