Louis Cole, an African American musician here in Paris under the watchful eye of Émile Savitry, opens the ball. In Pigalle, the night owls who glanced at each other in the shadows of a shady bar seem straight out of a cinematographic adaptation of Georges Simenon, an apache and his protégée smile grimly, the “Lady of the night” exposes herself in her sovereign beauty like Arletty in Le Jour se Lève by Marcel Carné. The rue Pigalle by night reveals La Lune rousse and shine on La Roulotte where Django Reinhardt soon played with Grappelli and the Hot Club de France. A jump to Montparnasse where Savitry spent all his life, guitarist in his spare time and crazy about jazz. In the 1930s we discover the Ponton club near the train station, La Coupole with Paul Grimault, Pablo Neruda the Chilean poet and consul in Spain during the civil war, and his South American friends to talk a little about Spain after the victory of the dictator Franco.
After the war in the cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Près, like Le Lorientais, where all the youth meet to dance to the New Orleans rhythm of the clarinet of Claude Luther and the banjo of Claude Philippe.
Sophie Malexis
Exhibition curator
Exhibition “Emile Savitry, a photographer from Montparnasse (1903-1967)
produced under the direction of Brigitte Richart, curator of the Granville museums
Richard-Anacréon Museum of Modern Art
Place de l’isthme- 50400 -Granville. Phone 02.33.51.02.94.
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday until the end of June from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and from July 1 to September 30 from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
