parisian party

Last week I had the pleasure of organizing a lunch and vernissage hosted by the President of the Mona Bismarck Foundation for an exhibition that they are presenting with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The exhibition is called Exploratrices Intrépides and features the work of 2 women- Margaret Mee and Marianne North. Margaret Mee was a world-renowned botanical artist and conservationist who spent over thirty years traveling through the Amazon rain forest (well into her 70’s, I might add) painting and collecting rare species of flowers. She greatly contributed to the development of knowledge about the Amazon, especially to the awareness for the need of its conservation.

Marianne North was a Victorian artist who traveled around the globe painting during a time when ladies just didn’t do that sort of thing (travel alone, not paint flowers…). In 1879, she offered her collection of over 800 paintings to Kew, as well a custom-built gallery to house them. Many of the Marianne North paintings on display at the Mona Bismarck Foundation have never been shown to the public before. The Mona Bismarck Foundation has done an amazing job of recreating the Marianne North Gallery (albeit on a smaller scale) within their salons.

The Presidents lunch was held in the Gardens at the Mona Bismarck Foundation, and I was instructed to make it exotic, feminine and pink! The flowers for the lunch (and exhibition) were by Estelle who is the most charming, unassuming, artistic GENIUS that you will ever meet. She waved her bagette magie over the worlds ugliest tent (another story) and turned it into Neverland. I can’t thank her enough!

Exploratrices Intrépides is on through July 28th at the Mona Bismarck Foundation, 34, Avenue de New York, 75116, Paris

(ps- A BIG merci to Fred Marigaux for his gorgeous photos of the event!)