R
enoir painted his last
fleshy nude right here in
Cagnes-sur-Mer – Matisse,
who was staying around
the coast, had brought
him the girl to pose. Pi-
casso lived out his horny
old age on a nearby hill. F Scott Fitzgerald
and his Jazz Age whirl moved into a hotel in
the next village along; he based 'Tender Is
The Night' on his summers with Zelda and
Hemingway. Bonnard and his wife (that lan-
guid, dark creature who was always in the
bath) spent their final years in this part of
the world, and you don't have to venture far
to see the looming purple outcrops gilded
at dawn and again at dusk that so inspired
Cezanne. A cravatted David Niven waving
from the wheel of a teak-decked speed-
boat. Prince Aly Khan, a glint in his eye and
Rita Hayworth on his arm. That calamitous
last drive of Grace Kelly on the craggy road
they'd named Rolls-Royces after. Glamour,
excess, romance, beauty: the Côte d'Azur
pretty much defined the 20th Century's
versions of them all. Then, in 1960, after the
last of the beau monde had finally packed
At Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean
coast, an afternoon at the races is a century
in the making...
By JOCELYN TARGETT
63
