Art is a part of me!
As far as I can remember, I always loved art. As my parents are art collectors, I grew in the middle of artists and artworks.
A few years ago, a major French artist, Pierre-Yves Trémois, who is now 87, member of the French Academy, reminded me that, when I was 9 years old, we had together a discussion about “can we live without art”. He said that he was amazed by my knowledge of art that young.
When I arrived in Paris, at 20 in the early eighties, my first expenses for my 10 square meter studio in Montmartre were artworks, and then furniture. I worked hard as security agent during my study in a business school to be able to keep buying art. I still own most of the artworks I bought during this period.
During the 25 past years I kept buying artworks, mainly directly from the artists or during auctions.
Today, my art collection is not the largest or does not gather the most expensive artworks, but is recognised as an eclectic and an original one. It includes artworks from Hans Hartung, Miro, Bonnard, Vuillard, Zao Wou Ki, Olivier Debré, Man Ray, Cocteau, Clavé, Arno Breker, Trémois, Tobiasse, Mauro Corda, Ghass, and many others. I also own the world largest collection of books, catalogs and any printed documents concerning Edouard Vuillard, the major member and founder of the French Nabis painters group with Bonnard.
Lately, when the curator of a major Paris museum visited me, he said in his “thank you card”: “your collection is very personal, interesting and consistent”. The US ambassador to OECD told me that she felt like being in a museum when visiting me.
I am also member of the “Fondation d’Art Contemporain Guerlain” and of the executive committee of “The Trémois Museum” which will be designed by the world famous architect “Jean-Michel Wilmotte” and whose Sponsorship Committee is president by Roman Polanski.
Close friend to Christine Albanel, French Minister of Culture, to Christophe Girard, Paris Deputy mayor in charge of Culture, and to many auctioneers like Tajan, art collectors like the Guerlains, Khalili, Sheikh al-Nahayan of Abu-Dhabi, I am always in close contact with the Paris and the international “Art Scene”.
In 2008, a kids dream went real, when I opened my own art gallery , not in Paris, but in Berlin, which I think will be the world art capital in the coming years if not already. It is located in the Berlin Hilton, at Gendamenmarkt and presents, as major artist, the Iranian born artist, Ghass, together with a few young but promising artists.
