Claude Pompidou, the publicity-shy widow of President Georges Pompidou who famously called the presidential palace "a house of sadness," died yesterday in Paris, her foundation said. She was 94.
The Claude Pompidou Foundation gave no cause of death. Georges Pompidou died in office on April 2, 1974.
Passionate about modern art, particularly the work of French artist Yves Klein, Ms. Pompidou was instrumental in the creation of a modern art museum that bears her husband's name. Opened in 1977, the audacious, tube-covered Pompidou Center is one of Paris' s most popular museums.
She was also committed to philanthropy. Her foundation, set up in 1970, helps handicapped children, the elderly, and hospital patients.
Timid and reserved, she had difficulty adjusting to life in the limelight. She once called the presidential Elysee Palace "a house of sadness" but in a 2004 interview with Le Figaro , she said that her years in the Elysee were hard but that she never regretted her husband's decision to go into politics.
Among her most memorable moments as the president's wife : an official dinner "during which a foreign minister put his hand on my knee and asked for my phone number, telling me that he was called George like my husband and that that way I wouldn't get their names wrong!" she recalled.
She was born as Claude Cahour, the child of a doctor, on Nov. 13, 1912, in Chateau-Gontier, a town in the west-central Mayenne region.
She met her future husband in Paris, when she was a first-year law student. The couple married in her hometown in 1935.
Ms. Pompidou leaves a son, Alain, a professor. Her funeral will be held Friday in Paris .
The Claude Pompidou Foundation gave no cause of death. Georges Pompidou died in office on April 2, 1974.
Passionate about modern art, particularly the work of French artist Yves Klein, Ms. Pompidou was instrumental in the creation of a modern art museum that bears her husband's name. Opened in 1977, the audacious, tube-covered Pompidou Center is one of Paris' s most popular museums.
She was also committed to philanthropy. Her foundation, set up in 1970, helps handicapped children, the elderly, and hospital patients.
Timid and reserved, she had difficulty adjusting to life in the limelight. She once called the presidential Elysee Palace "a house of sadness" but in a 2004 interview with Le Figaro , she said that her years in the Elysee were hard but that she never regretted her husband's decision to go into politics.
Among her most memorable moments as the president's wife : an official dinner "during which a foreign minister put his hand on my knee and asked for my phone number, telling me that he was called George like my husband and that that way I wouldn't get their names wrong!" she recalled.
She was born as Claude Cahour, the child of a doctor, on Nov. 13, 1912, in Chateau-Gontier, a town in the west-central Mayenne region.
She met her future husband in Paris, when she was a first-year law student. The couple married in her hometown in 1935.
Ms. Pompidou leaves a son, Alain, a professor. Her funeral will be held Friday in Paris .
Claude Pompidou, the publicity-shy widow of President Georges Pompidou who famously called the presidential palace "a house of sadness," died yesterday in Paris, her foundation said. She was 94.
The Claude Pompidou Foundation gave no cause of death. Georges Pompidou died in office on April 2, 1974.
Passionate about modern art, particularly the work of French artist Yves Klein, Ms. Pompidou was instrumental in the creation of a modern art museum that bears her husband's name. Opened in 1977, the audacious, tube-covered Pompidou Center is one of Paris' s most popular museums.
She was also committed to philanthropy. Her foundation, set up in 1970, helps handicapped children, the elderly, and hospital patients.
Timid and reserved, she had difficulty adjusting to life in the limelight. She once called the presidential Elysee Palace "a house of sadness" but in a 2004 interview with Le Figaro , she said that her years in the Elysee were hard but that she never regretted her husband's decision to go into politics.
Among her most memorable moments as the president's wife : an official dinner "during which a foreign minister put his hand on my knee and asked for my phone number, telling me that he was called George like my husband and that that way I wouldn't get their names wrong!" she recalled.
She was born as Claude Cahour, the child of a doctor, on Nov. 13, 1912, in Chateau-Gontier, a town in the west-central Mayenne region.
She met her future husband in Paris, when she was a first-year law student. The couple married in her hometown in 1935.
Ms. Pompidou leaves a son, Alain, a professor. Her funeral will be held Friday in Paris .
The Claude Pompidou Foundation gave no cause of death. Georges Pompidou died in office on April 2, 1974.
Passionate about modern art, particularly the work of French artist Yves Klein, Ms. Pompidou was instrumental in the creation of a modern art museum that bears her husband's name. Opened in 1977, the audacious, tube-covered Pompidou Center is one of Paris' s most popular museums.
She was also committed to philanthropy. Her foundation, set up in 1970, helps handicapped children, the elderly, and hospital patients.
Timid and reserved, she had difficulty adjusting to life in the limelight. She once called the presidential Elysee Palace "a house of sadness" but in a 2004 interview with Le Figaro , she said that her years in the Elysee were hard but that she never regretted her husband's decision to go into politics.
Among her most memorable moments as the president's wife : an official dinner "during which a foreign minister put his hand on my knee and asked for my phone number, telling me that he was called George like my husband and that that way I wouldn't get their names wrong!" she recalled.
She was born as Claude Cahour, the child of a doctor, on Nov. 13, 1912, in Chateau-Gontier, a town in the west-central Mayenne region.
She met her future husband in Paris, when she was a first-year law student. The couple married in her hometown in 1935.
Ms. Pompidou leaves a son, Alain, a professor. Her funeral will be held Friday in Paris .
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