Collectionneurs

What pushes a person to collec art? Following the model of her book on gallery owners, Anne Martin-Fugier leads her investigation through dialogues with a few choice guinea pigs. Consequently, the reader must reach his own conclusions based on personal cases such as Antoine de Galbert, the founder of the Maison rouge, or Gilles Fuchs, at the head of the Nina ricci house, who took advantage of his professional trips to meet gallery owners and visit workshops, and who would become the soul of the Marcel-Duchamp prize. We are no longer in the times of Artemisia: the role of women in ths case is of essence, as we learn through the case of Florence (with Daniel) Guerlain or Françoise (with Jean-Philippe Billarant), who greatly influenced the purchasing procedure. The book is enriched with various anecdotes, some of them tragic such as the case of Claude & Micheline Renard whose paintings were sold to pay for the operation their daugter needed after being touched by a bomb set by the OAS); or unusually judgemental opinions on the actors of the art market, such as painter Barthélémy Toguo, or Liliane Durand-Dessert, etc.) The book shows that to be a collector one does not necessarily need t have a lot of money and follow the market, but rather to have encounters and follow one’s passions.

• Collectionneurs, by Anne Martin-Fugier, Actes Sud, 2012, 304 p., 22 €.