Posted By Paul Parker on Feb 29, 2016 | 5 comments

It all started the day I read that article from the February 10, 1958 issue of the Santa Fe New Mexican. It was recounting the memorial service that had been held the day before to remember the artist Alfred Morang. Alfred was the unofficial Mayor of the Santa Fe art community and he had died tragically in a fire a few days earlier. The director of the Art Museum Dr. Reginald Fisher was one of the people who spoke. Dr. Fisher ended his eulogy with, “Alfred was an inventive, searching and daring spirit as French as Lautrec, yet he never saw Paris. Last week his restless spirit found peace.”

When I think back it becomes obvious to me that those words changed the course of the rest of my life. Alfred inspired that first trip to Paris in 2011 and that opened barn door and let the horses out. When I left Paris after that first trip I had a list of things I was going to do when I returned, but I really did not know when that would be, but there was no turning back.

I returned in 2014 and included a few days in Amsterdam and a stop in Maastricht, Netherlands for The European Fine Art Fair before heading for Paris for two weeks.

I will be heading out for my third trip to Europe in a few days and this one will be special. It will again start in Amsterdam where I will visit the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Stedelijk and take in all the sights and sounds of that beautiful city. I will also take the 50 minute train ride to The Hague for a day trip to see the Mauritius Museum and Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earing” along with several Rembrandt’s and other 17th Century Dutch masterpieces

After 6 days in Amsterdam I will take a train 2 ½ hours south for 120 miles to Maastricht and The European Fine Art Fair. TEFAF Maastricht is universally regarded as the world’s leading art fair, setting the standard for excellence in the art and antique market. The fair will feature 275 of world’s most prestigious dealers from 20 countries and this year I have one of the coveted passes to the preview opening that is held the day before the fair opens to the public. It should be an incredible experience.

I will spend 5 days in Maastricht attempting to examine all 30,000 objects in the show, but then after a short local train ride to Liege in Belgium I will board the 200 MPH Thalys train for the 2 hour trip to Paris. I will be in Paris in an apartment on the Left Bank in the heart of St. Germain for 6 weeks and the museums and shows and side trips are too numerous to mention. I hope you will come along with me by following this blog.

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