October by The Art Society : Tribal and Asian

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Mask beete (pebood) gabon, kwele. 19th century wood, paint. musĂŠe barbier-mueller. photo credit: studio ferrazzini bouchet

A 1st-century roman head from the barbier-mueller collection

Auguste Herbin, composition, 1918

Cuno Amiet’s ‘Young Girl with Nasturtium’ (1907) © Maurice Aeschimann

INTERVIEW Barbier-Mueller collection at Biennale Paris A rare exhibition reveals the diverse tastes of the family dynasty, from tribal art to designer chairs Financial Times - September 8, 2017 by Gareth Harris

Monique Barbier-Mueller enjoys relaying how her late husband, the Swiss businessman Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, was initially unimpressed by her father’s art and antiquities collection at the family home in Solothurn outside Bern, Switzerland. “[In 1965] Jean-Paul confessed to me, 10 years after we were married, that he considered the residence awful; there were no gilt chairs!” she says. But her father, the precision tools manufacturer Josef Mueller (1887-1977), was a visionary buyer, scooping up works by Cézanne and Van Gogh, as well as classical antiquities. Crucially, he also began buying tribal art in Paris in 1920s. “My father discovered Kandinsky in the US and bought two works. He was hit by the [Wall Street Crash] and concentrated on ethnic art, antiques, pottery and Cycladic art,” she says. When Mueller died, he left about 1,000 paintings and 2,500 artefacts. His works, including his first acquisition — Cuno Amiet’s 1907 painting “Young Girl with Nasturtium” — are the nucleus of a special 130-work exhibition at Biennale Paris in the Grand Palais this week. It reveals the collecting tastes and pursuits of four generations of the Barbier-Mueller dynasty, spanning 110 years of collecting activity.

The show traces the family’s art lineage from Josef Mueller to Monique and Jean-Paul, through to their three sons Thierry, Gabriel and Stéphane. Their eclectic holdings, rarely seen in public, are displayed in the exhibition (even granddaughter Diane features; she buys first edition books, and will show a rare original edition of Molière’s 1663 comedy School for Wives). “My father’s influence runs through the display,” says Monique. “Works such as an unfinished landscape by Ferdinand Hodler are the seed of the collection.” Despite that initial encounter in Solothurn, Jean-Paul, who died last December aged 86, caught the collecting bug. In 1977, the real estate developer opened the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva, which houses more than 7,000 objects. He subsequently fine-tuned and expanded his father-in-law’s collection, encompassing Mediterranean antiquities as well as Oceanic and American artefacts.

Jean-Paul’s key acquisitions showcased in Paris include a 19th-century Cameroonian wooden royal stool inlaid with pearls. “[His] influence on the art market in general is tremendous, and his personal attachment to tribal art and the immense efforts he put into promoting it cannot be equalled,” says the Paris-based tribal art dealer Anthony Meyer. But not everything has gone to plan. Jean-Paul was committed to exhibiting his tribal art holdings — this year, works have been on loan to 22 museums — but another museum initiative flopped. In 1997, the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian art opened at the Casa Nadal in Barcelona, but a deal with the state to buy the works fell through, Jean Paul withdrew his collection and the institution folded. “We did not understand local politics well enough and had to make so many compromises,” Monique admits. The couple vehemently objected to repatriating works. “Jean Paul was a strong opponent of the return of cultural goods supported by Unesco or Unidroit, fearing unique artefacts would disappear in their countries of origin,” says the French journalist Vincent Noce. The Barbier-Muellers consigned 300 pre-Columbian items to Sotheby’s Paris in 2013; the sale fetched €10.3m in total. “The museums cost more than we expected,” Monique explains. Following the death of her husband, the Geneva museum is under their sons’ supervision. Their tastes differ from those of their parents, but the eldest, Gabriel, has experience of running an institution: he and his wife opened The Ann & Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum: The Samurai Collection in their hometown of Dallas in 2012. (Their daughter, Niña Barbier-Mueller Tollett, is co-curator of the museum.)

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s ‘Lady Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl’ (1791-92) © Luis Lourenço 19th-century Malagan figure from Papua New Guinea © Studio Ferrazzini Bouchet

The pair have amassed almost 1,000 objects. “The aesthetics used by these fierce and cultivated warriors drew us in,” says Gabriel Barbier-Mueller. In 2012, they loaned Japanese warrior paraphernalia, such as helmets and horse armour dating from the past nine centuries, to the Musée du Quai Branly Jacques Chirac in Paris. The Barbier-Muellers’ middle son, Gabriel’s brother Stéphane, is a partner in the Geneva-based real estate company Pilet & Renaud. He has specialised in numismatics, publishing a catalogue of his French currency collection in 2016. It details his coin acquisitions, from gallic Merovingian money of the fifth century to gold sovereigns made under Napoleon III in the 19th century. “I also collect Russian imperial coins and purchase antique objects such as bronze or marble Roman heads,” he says. “I always followed my father’s advice: always the best, only the best.” One of his paintings, “Lady Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl” (1791-92) by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, is a standout work in the family show at Biennale Paris. The youngest sibling, Thierry, has taken the reins at the family property services firm, Société Privée de Gérance. He is steeped in contemporary art; the tribal masks in the Biennale Paris exhibition belonging to his father will be displayed alongside canvases from Thierry’s own collection by Georg Baselitz (“Die Schwarze Sängerin”, 1982) and Erik Bulatov (“Le Printemps, Boulevard Sébastopol”, 2011). Works by Ghada Amer, Chéri Samba, Silvia Bächli, Markus Raetz and Jannis Kounellis are at the core of Thierry’s contemporary art collection. He also buys chairs: prototypes, unique pieces and limited editions from the 1960s to today by designers including Ron Arad, Shiro Kuramata and Ettore Sottsass. The list of works in the family’s Biennale Paris exhibition is as compelling as it is unconventional. Eighteenth-century Boulle sideboards bought from the New York dealer Henri Kamer will be juxtaposed with a mottled first-century BC bronze head from Italy, loaned by Stéphane Barbier-Mueller. The Vigée Le Brun painting will be flanked by an ancient vase from Borneo and a Rapa dance baton from Polynesia, dating from the early 19th century. The show also has a sprinkling of Monique Barbier-Mueller’s own modern and contemporary acquisitions, including a racy sculpture of a naked woman bathing by Jeff Koons (“Woman in Tub”, 1988) and Andy Warhol’s “Portrait (à la Picasso)” from 1985. “People have asked me if I was scared of these works. Why should I be scared! My father taught me that appreciating art is like learning a new language,” she says.

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