French art the American way
The American collector Rodica Seward, owner of Tajan, France’s best-known private auction house, has a missionary passion for modern French art. She talks to Louise Nicholson.
Louise Nicholson, Monday, 25th August 2008
To survive, she believes that Tajan needs a base of quality collectors, which she is in a unique position to serve. ‘Given I worked in banking for 20 years, I merged my database with Tajan’s. So now we have the same clients as Christie’s and Sotheby’s, but with many I have a personal relationship. A young girl from Christie’s or Sotheby’s doesn’t have this.’ For Tajan’s 100 or so sales each year, held both at its own salerooms and other appropriate locations, Mrs Seward puts the emphasis on detail, small sales of high quality, and relationships with clients. ‘I say to them it is better to have your works properly lit and shown in their place of origin than to have them as lower items in a big sale.’
She evidently enjoys the freedom and power that owning Tajan has brought. ‘I can do what I want. I encourage my team to have ideas. I do themed events to promote French culture, galleries, artists.’ Tajan’s exhibitions, held between sales, have ranged from ‘Origins of Modernism’ (Fig. 1) to François Rouan’s paintings. Mrs Seward believes in French art. ‘I go all the way from 1910 cubism to contemporary. I like especially the School of Paris, pre-war and post. In my apartment I mix Chinese lacquer with Mangelli, Picabia, Herbin, then Poliakoff, Soulages.’ Equally, she knows that it badly needs promotion.
Not surprisingly, she endorses the view that money markets determine local art’s rise – or not. ‘After the war, America took over politically and economically; they bought their own art – Pollock to De Kooning, Sam Francis, Kline. Then, when Mrs Thatcher came to power in the 1980s, the financial markets moved to the uk and British art had patronage. I think the French art was just as good but did not have the patronage. Pierre Matisse was the one who showed French artists in New York – Miró, Dubuffet and, during his last two years, Rouan. The first time I saw Rouan was at the Met, placed in the Guerlain collection by Pierre Matisse. After him’, she concludes, ‘there was noone to do the global work.’ She is gloomy about the future. ‘Now in France, nothing has changed. There will be no flourishing of French art until there is patronage, corporate and private. There is no fiscal impetus. There is no strong public or private patronage supporting French art, no strong galleries. Even the couple of good French galleries in New York are not showing French art.’
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