LOUIS COUPERUS COLUMNIST

24 May – 15 November 2009

This year it is exactly 100 years ago that Louis Couperus started to write 'feuilletons' for several Dutch newspapers. These short pieces were in fact columns in the modern sense of the word: short, spirited, autobiographical articles about the things that happened around him and the people he met in Italy and in Nice, where he lived at the time. These columns were collected in books like Van en over mijzelf en anderen (1910), Korte arabesken en De zwaluwen neer gestreken...(1911). In 1924 an English anthology appeared under the title Eighteen short stories.

The pink dinner jacket

The exhibition focuses on the Nice columns. They are visualised with photo's, posters and documents from the Nice municipal archives. Subject matter was Nice town life, from the famous 'beau monde' of the period down to the local butcher and fisherman that Couperus met on his walks through town. The famous pink dinner jacket, that Couperus had made for the 1910 Carnaval of Nice, will also be on display.



The exhibition was made possible thanks to a financial contribution from the Stichting Clepkens-Hendriks Foundation.

Front cover of Eighteen tales, featuring the Mont Boron in Nice (1924)