TESSA NEWCOMB'S PARIS (Hardback)

Artist Tessa Newcomb’s new book explores her love of Paris in words and paint – ‘a more leisurely Paris with fewer cars, less noise and stress’ – with elegant ladies walking their dogs, one large and one small, children playing on the carousels in the Tuileries, devotees of boules and chess in the Luxembourg, bars and cafés, hidden squares, shuttered windows, glimpses of interiors, strolling nuns, mysterious courtyards seen through half-open doors. ‘I want to do a present-day Atget. Seeing his wonderfully evocative photographs of Paris in the early twentieth-century made me want to revisit this magical city, to find those hidden places still to be explored.’ Around 100 oils and watercolour drawings, lovingly painted in the past few years, offer a wonderful visual record of her wanderings in the by-ways of Paris. A world away from Tessa’s Suffolk, this is a jewel of a book to bring back treasured memories or to spur a visit.