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
If anyone can raise the profile of modern and contemporary French art, it might be Mrs Seward. Soon after her arrival, she beat off the competition to put New York City dealer Julien Levy’s 900-piece surrealist collection under Tajan’s hammer. More recently, she has made Tajan the leader among France’s many auction houses, including Christie’s and Sotheby’s, for 20th-century decorative arts, for design and for Old Masters. Three of the top five 2007 auction prices in France for Old Masters were gained at Tajan sales – a Terbrugghen, a Fragonard (Fig. 6) and a Watteau (Fig. 8).
From Tajan’s beautiful top-lit 1925 saleroom, an elegant double staircase rises to an encircling balcony and the company offices. Here, works for sale give way to Mrs Seward’s own art, leading to the inner sanctum of her office. She leads me from space to space, from piece to piece. ‘This is by Marc Desgrandchamps – look, it’s beautiful, as good as any Doig’, she says, grabbing a catalogue of his work. We move to another space. ‘Now I’m gonna show you this Rebeyrolle; if it were a Rauschenberg, just think…’. She comes to rest in the conference room (Fig. 4), where, surrounding another table she designed, two big Rouans hang (‘he’s unbelievable’) together with paintings by young Romanian artists. ‘There’s a lot of art!’, she exclaims, grinning with evident pleasure. I’m crazy, an auctioneer who collects.’
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