Laurent Negro (art collector)

Laurent Negro (* 1972 in Gourdon , Alpes-Maritimes ) is a French art collector . His collection of Art Deco objects is considered by experts to be the most important private collection of its kind.

Life

Laurent Negro is the son of the entrepreneur of the same name . With the death of his father in 1996, he inherited part of his billionaire fortune, as well as the castle of Gourdon with a considerable art collection. The son then stayed in London for ten years and wrote a treatise on David Hume , the philosopher of the Enlightenment .

Collections

The father's inherited art collection consisted of ancient art, but there were no pieces with a brilliant reputation among them. The son set his ambition to build up an excellent and unique collection. He concentrated on the Art Deco of the 1920s with a focus on artists of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) and acquired more than a thousand objects within 15 years. He sold the collection of naive art that his father had put together in 2002.

His Art Deco collection included the following pieces, which experts rated as first-class:

• Robert Mallet-Stevens' personal dining room .
• The ebony bed, the large black lacquered desk and the Aux skis chaise longue by Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann .
• The cork table, the Bibendum armchair (1926/1929) and an airy Paravent Briques made of black-lacquered, joined rectangular wooden elements by Eileen Gray were created in 1923/1925, similar to the one that the artist created for the studio of the fashion designer Suzanne Talbot .
• A black and ivory lacquered gaming table designed by Jean Dunand for Madeleine Vionnet is estimated to be worth 5 million euros. Also created by Jean Dunand is a large angular chest of drawers with a surface made of light Chinese lacquer and distinctive vertical black strips along the drawer handles.
• The cubist floor lamp La Religieuse, modèle SN 31 by Pierre Chareau , made for the Grand Hôtel Tours.
• A large number of objects made of steel, other metal and glass come from the estate of the Maharajah of Indore , including the above-mentioned desk by Ruhlmann.
• A silver-plated metal and marble table clock from 1930 designed by Jean Puiforcat and manufactured at Hour Lavigne in Paris.

Pieces by artists of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), including the aforementioned artists Eileen Gray and Pierre Chareau , are less valued in market value than the works of classic Art Déco, but significant from an art-historical point of view because of their radical modernity at the time and Robert Mallet-Stevens also included Charlotte Perriand , Djo-Bourgeois , René Herbst and Le Corbusier .

Laurent Negro takes visitors through his collection from time to time, but otherwise leads a secluded life and stays away from the media and the internet. He does not use a computer and, according to self-reported information, is not able to program a video recorder. He is skeptical of modern technology: “People change their cell phones every year. Her computer every two years. ... I hate this throwaway society. "

On the other hand, he attaches great importance to the fact that the objects from his collection, innovative treasures of their time, are all technically functional - in contrast to some objects in public collections. His table by Charlotte Perriand , which is illuminated from the inside, can be switched on - the almost identical copy that is in the Musée des arts déco in Paris cannot.

In March 2011, Christie's auctioned off 869 lots from the collection, including the objects mentioned above, in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris .

source

• Michel Guerrin: L'ange caché de l'Art déco . Le Monde , November 16, 2010, pp. 24-25.

Remarks

1. ^ The canon of the billionaire heir in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung of March 27, 2011, page 57
2. ↑ «Les gens changent du télephone portable chaque année! D'ordinateur tous les deux ans! ... J'exècre cette société du jetable! »

Web links

• Public exhibition of the Laurent Negro collection in the Castle of Gourdon (French)