Salvador Dali’s Version of Nasty Women

If you’re visiting Paris this summer, check out this little-known portrait of Paris’ Grande Dame

This week, while I take a short break, I thought I’d re-visit an older episode of the art podcast I used to produce, called Artipoeus and one of Salvador Dali’s most famous portraits, The Kentucky Countess, at The Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris.

Paris is often known as a feminine city — a city that celebrates the beauty of women, womanly charms, of all things feminine. For women coming from America — where you should have a career but not be ambitious, where you should be independent but not strong, where you should be charming but not demanding, where you should be sexy but not a slut, where the ideal woman is really just a spunky teenager, regardless of her real age — Paris is a relief.

Finally, you are allowed — encouraged, actually — to rejoice in your curves, your wrinkles, your experience, your sway, in the power of every inch of your body — including some surprising corners! — where you get to be a woman.

More than one American has landed in Paris a girl and grown into a woman there.