The French pop icon and master provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, who died in 1991, will be remembered for his cynical wit and audacious life. Among his muses and marriages was a tumultuous 10-year mentor-protégé relationship with the British singer and actress Jane Birkin, which produced a daughter, Charlotte, and ended due to Gainsbourg’s violence and alcoholism. Since his death, Charlotte Gainsbourg has left her father’s abode at 5 bis rue Verneuil, where he lived since 1969, frozen in time. Cigarettes still litter ashtrays and red wine bottles lie in wait, half full, as if the man might walk right in. For the 30th anniversary of the star’s death, the Gainsbourg mansion is opening its doors. Visits begin just up the street at 14 rue de Verneuil, which nows host a museum of Gainsbourg’s life and work as well as a bookstore and the piano-bar Le Gainsbarre. —E.C.
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A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
Maison Gainsbourg Opening
Where
The Maison Gainsbourg / 14 rue de Verneuil / Paris
Etc
Maison Gainsbourg © Alexis Raimbault.