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WATCHMAKERS THE MASTERS OF ART HOROLOGY

Introduction by AUREL BACS • Critical Note by NICHOLAS FOULKES • Conceived by CLAUDIO PROIETTI

contents Acknowledgements page 10

The Watchmakers

Introduction Aurel Bacs page 11

Hajime Asaoka

A Dream Realised Claudio Proietti page 12

Ludovic Ballouard

Watchmakers, The Exhibition Nicholas Foulkes page 13

Christophe Claret

The Art of Time Su Jiaxian page 14

George Daniels

AďŹ cionado of Independent Watchmaking Ian Skellern page 15

De Bethune (Denis Flageollet)

pages 22-47

pages 48-69

pages 70-93

pages 94-103

pages 104-121

Work of Art Kari Voutilainen page 16

Philippe Dufour

Together, In The Name of Independence Arthur Touchot page 17

Laurent Ferrier

pages 122-135

pages 136-159

The Link Of Touch Donald W. Corson page 18

Romain Gauthier

Watchmakers: The Masters Of Art Horology Marco Deiana page 19

Vianney Halter

Musings Of A Passionate Collector Vittorio Bertoldi page 20 Woodstock Ciro Sfrecola page 21 The Exhibition page 248 Credits page 251

pages 160-177

pages 178-189

Christian Klings pages 190-201

Jean Daniel Nicolas (Daniel Roth) pages 202-215

Roger Smith pages 216-227

Kari Voutilainen pages 228-247

acknowledgements

My duty, which is also my greatest privilege, as curator of ‘Watchmakers: the Masters of Art Horology’, is to express my warmest gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the realisation of something that no one else has been able to do before.

A special thanks goes to Livia Russo and Aurel Bacs. As we all know, Bacs & Russo is the world’s leading watch auction house and I was delighted to see how this has not diminished in the slightest their passion and unbiased love for these art objects. I also wish to thank Aurel Bacs in particular for doing us the honour of penning the preface to this book.

First and foremost, I want to thank all the watchmakers who have agreed to fly with me, supported only by the wings of imagination, at a time when this project could easily appear nothing more than the pipe dream of an enthusiast.

Thank you to all our media partners, to the journalists and to everyone who has kindly agreed to contribute their thoughts to the book.

In particular, I am grateful to Nicholas Foulkes, one of the most distinguished names in this sector, who has enthusiastically agreed to write for us here. I cannot deny that I only really understood the importance of what this project achieves once I read Nicholas Foulkes’ description of the watchmakers on display as ‘an impressive list of exhibitors’.

In particular, I thank Daniel Roth – it was his creations from the early 1990s that ignited my passion for handcrafted watchmaking. Mr Roth is also the one who, together with Dufour, Daniels and a handful of other brave souls, paved the way to the emergence of independent watchmaking, by believing it was possible to create watches in total freedom, expressing their personal artistic vision. I believe their efforts were key to restoring dignity and centrality to the watchmaker’s craft. What is more, they have shown the way to anyone who dreamed of something different from the constrained parameters and limits of industrial manufacture. Also, Roth’s complex experience has allowed all of today’s independents to understand what can be achieved and what must be avoided. So, in recognition of his role as elder brother to all the watchmakers on display, I decided to dedicate the cover of this book to Daniel’s latest creation, his masterpiece – the Tourbillon 2 Minutes of Jean Daniel Nicolas.

I would also like also to thank Gary Getz, Ian Skellern and Su Jiaxian for kindly providing us with some of the imagery in the book in such a devoted and generous way. Ian also supplied the biography for Philippe Dufour, as authorised by the esteemed watchmaker.

Thank you to all our partners and technical sponsors. It is worth bearing in mind that, without such support, dreams are destined to remain just that. So, thank you Ferrari, Asigest Broker, Principe and Roma Media Service.

Lastly, I want to express my personal gratitude to my family for enduring and forgiving my many absences, both physical and mental, of the past year and to my assistant, Irene Moccia, who, in addition to her usual professionalism and resourcefulness, in the organisation of such an international project has demonstrated remarkable skills as a translator and interpreter, working in a dizzying number of different languages.

I thank Roger Smith, not only for giving me his permission to exhibit the work of his teacher and watchmaker extraordinaire George Daniels, but also for asking the English Prime Minister for the loan of Daniels’ Great Britain watch, which is on permanent display at number 10 Downing Street.

I also wish to thank Carolina Lanfranchi, Diana Ortega, Arthur Touchot, Asta Ponzo, Susan Graves and Phillips, the auctioneers, who have supported the project since the beginning, bringing their passion, professionalism and a truly international dimension by welcoming us into their prestigious venues.

‘I conclude by guiltily thanking anyone whom I might have forgotten to acknowledge in the creation of Watchmakers: the Masters of Art Horology’ Claudio Proietti —

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Hajime Asaoka

Consequently, he resolved to not only design watches but also to manufacture them, controlling each part of the process himself.

In 2004, Hajime started researching watchmaking, studying precision manufacturing for three years to master the art. His only experience came from reading George Daniels’ Watchmaking and from disassembling his own watches.

In 2009, he created his first watch, X-1 Tourbillon, made purely for the purposes of research and development, not for sale. He chose the challenge of the tourbillon first, thinking that if he could master this process, other fields of watchmaking would be achievable. Two years later he created Tourbillon 1, his first watch for paying clients. It has a free-sprung balance with a huge moment of inertia. The free-sprung watch is good for shock resistance and timekeeping precision but requires a higher level of precision manufacturing because there is much less span for regulating, compared to a watch with a regulator. In addition, to smoothly rotate the huge tourbillon carriage with a similarly huge balance wheel demands perfectly manufactured parts, assembled with astounding precision. Hajime’s ultimate precision manufacturing makes this possible.

When Hajime creates the movement for a watch, he manufactures the base plate, wheels, pinions, pallet forks, escapement wheels and even balance wheel. Not only does he manufacture movement parts, he cuts, paints and prints the dial, and polishes the case by hand.

In 2012, Hajime created the Tsunami watch, a simple three-hand watch with a huge balance. He built the movement very carefully, installing a huge 15mm balance. In 2014, Project T, another tourbillon watch, emerged, realised with the cooperation of Yuki Precision, manufacturer for aerospace industries and OSG, one of the best tool manufacturers on the planet. Project T’s special feature is its 13 ball bearings. In particular, the ball bearing for the tourbillon carriage is the smallest in the world. Utilising ball bearings improves endurance and resistance to shock. The watch is made with two modules; one is a power pack that provides power from the main spring and another is a regulation module. Together, they improve maintainability and make the positioning of each axis more accurate. Consequently, it also improves endurance and timing accuracy. Project T also has a beautifully polished case and a black dial coated in DLC. In 2017, Hajime created Chronograph. He loves traditional chronographs, and has revived their spirit with this new watch.

Chronograph contains elements common to the masterpieces of the 1950s and 60s, such as the column wheel, horizontal clutch with carrying arm, brake lever, two buttons and sliding gear. Hajime has positioned the chronograph mechanism on the dial side to show how the parts of the chronograph move when they are operating. Of course, the contrast between the complicated dial side and the simple back side is typical to Hajime Asaoka’s modern style. It has a huge 15mm-diameter balance wheel and a large barrel, which acts to minimise the decline of the balance wheel’s amplitude and keeps timing accuracy even when the chronograph mechanism is operating.

For me, ‘haute horlogerie’ is the only measure by which to express myself.

I express myself by observing the principles of nature with my five senses, and I then realise what I have observed by designing and manufacturing in watchmaking

Since Hajime Asaoka realised his first tourbillon in 2009, he has been considered one of the leading watchmakers in Japan and Asia. Utilising hand-crafted techniques and modern technology such as CAD/CAM, he has designed whole watches and manufactured not only movements but also cases and dials in house.

Hajime was born in 1965 in Kanagawa Prefecture, a suburb of Tokyo.

His father’s ancestors were katana-kaji (刀鍛冶), Japanese swordsmiths, and he saw lots of beautiful swords during his childhood.

But he also saw how lathes and milling machines operate, because his mother’s home business was in manufacturing small parts for the electronics industry. Growing up in this environment, it was natural that Hajime became interested in both aesthetics and manufacturing.

As a teenager, he enthusiastically read a book about manufacturing yachts, using the book as a guide to make his own models of sailing boats. The lessons learned from this process formed the basis for his later watchmaking.

In 1992, after graduating from the School of Industrial Design at Tokyo University of the Arts, and working as an assistant researcher in college, he founded Hajime Asaoka Design Office. He was one of the first designers to use 3D rendering in Japan. He did everything, including shooting photography, the compositing of CG, photo retouching and checking images, enabling him to control quality on all elements of design.

Hajime applied his skills as a designer to the wristwatch. However, he found the realisation of such projects restricted by cost.

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Romain Gauthier For me, ‘haute horlogerie’ is watchmaking without compromises.

It is about raising the art of watchmaking to the highest level possible by taking the time to truly master each step of the creative process. To reach this degree of excellence without cutting corners necessarily means making timepieces in very limited numbers

2002. His final thesis was the business plan for his watch company.

After working behind closed doors on his own timepieces for three years, he launched the Romain Gauthier brand in 2005. Romain Gauthier has since developed its exclusive collections to include classically refined pieces, contemporarily casual creations and ethereal objets d’art, all featuring in-house movements finished to the highest standard.

‘The period between creating my first watch, Prestige HM/HMS, and my second, Logical One, stands out the most because it was such a pivotal time in my career,’ Romain recalls. ‘There was a level of expectancy, a certain pressure, when I created Logical One. Prestige HM/HMS already displayed certain traits: a clean design, eye-catching engineering and a strong devotion to fine finishing. Collectors, retailers and the press that knew me were wondering how I was going to build on that. After all, I was still young, a precision mechanic by trade, and it wasn’t obvious which direction I was going to take next.

‘I knew that if I was going to develop what I had started, I had to make something beautiful and technically innovative, and which made sense in the wider context of watchmaking; something with a relevant complication, something that made people say “wow”. So, creating Logical One wasn’t just about making a second timepiece, it was about creating a clearer picture of who I was as a watchmaker and what I had to contribute to the watchmaking landscape. And that is easier said than done. When Logical One won the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève for Best Men’s Complication, it was more than just a prize for me – it was a green light to say “Romain, you’re on the right track, you need to continue what you’re doing.”’

Romain marries the know-how that he has developed from living, studying and working in the Vallée de Joux with a no-compromise approach to haute horlogerie. He creates exceptional timepieces that have been hailed for their eye-catching designs, innovative mechanisms and extremely high level of hand-finishing.

Romain Gauthier’s ability to create exquisite timepieces is largely thanks to his manufacture, based in Le Sentier, which he steadily built up over his career. The manufacture blends skilled craftsmen and timehonoured watchmaking tools with experienced technicians and cutting-edge production methods, allowing Romain Gauthier to design, produce, decorate, assemble and regulate in-house all movements for the brand’s timepieces.

While all this savoir-faire results in uncompromised quality and impressive precision, it also imbues Romain Gauthier timepieces with a rare beauty and a unique soul. The exclusivity of Romain Gauthier timepieces is ensured by their restrained rate of production – about 60 pieces per year.

Romain Gauthier is the founder, CEO and creative director of the highend Swiss watch brand Romain Gauthier.

Romain was born in 1975 in the Vallée de Joux, the heart of fine Swiss watchmaking. It was in this picturesque valley that Romain developed his passion for traditional haute horlogerie, his grasp of mechanics and engineering, and his eye for design.

Having studied precision-mechanics at technical college, Romain qualified as a constructor of precision machinery in 1997. A year later, he started his first job as machine programmer-operator at a horological components manufacturer, which he helped turn into one of the best-performing facilities in Europe.

Determined to build from scratch not just his own high-end watch, but also his own high-end watch brand, Romain completed an MBA in —

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My first experience of watchmaking was the IWC pocket watch ébauche, my school watch in Finland. It took us a long time to complete the watch. We worked on axes, hairspring and finishing work, and I was very proud to be able to complete the watch and to see it ticking – and ticking very well.

Precisely. Today, the future is very bright for watchmakers working with passion and respect. There is space for us as independent watchmakers. There are so many people on the planet, and so much potential. It is up to us as watchmakers to show our work and to communicate with our customers

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the exhibition Roma

New York

MAXXI – Museo Nazionale Delle Arti Del XXI Secolo, Via Guido Reni, 4/a 6th to 15th April 2018

Phillips Headquarters, 450 Park Avenue 26th to 30th April 2018

Copyright 2015 Phillips Auctioneers Limited. All Rights Reserved

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WATCHMAKERS THE MASTERS OF ART HOROLOGY

Hajime Asaoka Ludovic Ballouard Christophe Claret George Daniels De Bethune Philippe Dufour Laurent Ferrier Romain Gauthier Vianney Halter Christian Klings Jean Daniel Nicolas Roger Smith

ISBN: 978-1-85149-907-6

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£60.00/$85.00

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Kari Voutilainen