The only sale of 1997 reported a 82 times

Imagine a couple of American bourgeois, not really rich - the husband is manufacturer of costume jewelry and the woman is old vendor of the Department store Macy's - arriving in forty years to bring together the most important collection of Picasso in private hands. This story is revealed in the 1990s belongs to the great American legend. But here it is not "self-made-man" but of "self-made - collector". How a man, by his one eye, will succeed to defy the laws of the art market to build an exceptional set of tables The true legend was unveiled by House of Christie's sales at auction which dispersed the collection of Victor and Sally Ganz, after the death of the latter in 1997. All reported $ 206 million, at the time a sum never reached by a single private collection. Already in November 1988, Sotheby's sold a small portion of the collection after the disappearance of Victor. Eleven tables awarded $ 48.5 million. Sally tells that, two days before the death of her husband, while she was at his bedside with their son, and she believed that he was sleeping, he had opened the eyes and said: "this is no longer with me." The art is more to me. "Victor thus showed his regret to leave the passion of his life. As when Mazarin, about to die and walking once its collections, said the famous: "Alas it leave it." Farewell dear tables. I no longer will see where I go. "But, to return to contemporary history, these sales were not really the will of the family, but justified by the need. New York estate amounted to 68 of the value of the assets concerned.

The works are part of the family universe

The history of the Ganz collectors started in 1941. Victor had used to say with humor: "the same year, I got married, I bought my first table and I started my psychoanalysis."A few months after their union, they discover the work of an artist who is then unknown: Pablo Picasso. They are buying for 7,000 dollars (awarded 48.4 million in 1997) a painting executed nine years earlier, while the master of Malaga is damn lover of a young woman blonde and sensual, Marie-Thérèse Walter. We know that her paintings are the mirror of his passions. "The dream" is all in curves and bright colours. He represents Marie-Thérèse sitting, sultry, hands on the stomach and head on the shoulder. Can not see the first time look, but Picasso has cut the face into two parts so that one of them takes the form of a human sex. The attraction to the young woman is explicit. As told by children Ganz, it has happened many times that the guests of the couple are inconvenienced at the sight of the canvas and asked, at the dinner, sit back on the Picasso. Maya Picasso, the daughter of the painter and Marie-Thérèse, says (1): "There are those who watch television before going to sleep;" the Ganz watched "The dream" for falling asleep. "From this moment on, the Ganz will exclusively purchase works by Picasso, in all twenty, until 1956. The paintings of Picasso are experienced daily with simplicity. They are part of the family universe. At this point that Tony, the son of the family who, one day, while he was six years old, will sleep in a friend, was surprised on his return, while its big sister questioned on his release: "Yes, we have had much fun, I ate well. But where are their Picasso "The broker in works of art Franck Giraud, who has known the family, says he is surprised to children that Victor and Sally have placed in their house a painting of particularly violent Picasso, in 1939 under the verve of"Guernica ". "It shows a cat to the crocs sharp holding in its mouth a chicken." A scene to nightmares! ""Any", replied the children. "For us it was like a cartoon image."

The stairs leading to the first floor of the apartment is then filled with a hundred prints of the artist and the red room is devoted to a series of 1955, "The women of Algiers", inspired by the work of Delacroix. Victor had to demonstrate a commitment out of the ordinary to get. In 1956, he asked Kahnweiler, dealer of Picasso, one of the series. But the man, rather hard in business, requires to fully sell all: fifteen large format paintings, dated from the previous year. Victor Ganz decided to take on his own account and managed to sell ten immediately to museums and galleries. He held five. This experience marks the couple. From 1958, they decide to no longer buy Picasso: financially inaccessible to them. They then start looking for new artists. Each Saturday afternoon is devoted to the visit of galleries. They discover new York artists who are now stars in the history of the post-war art: Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Eva Hesse. For each of them, as with Picasso previously, the policy is to collect "in depth".The Ganz acquired recent productions supplemented by ancient works.

Book on eye Ganz step

But what remains today of the Ganz collection Just a few memories... Two among the four children only, it seems, collectors. "The dream", the canvas, flagship of the couple, belongs to a famous collector of Las Vegas, Steve Wynn, unfortunately gave a violent elbowed in the canvas at the RIP. It has since been restored after having been at the centre of a strong media campaign on the issue of its value. The most famous painting by Rauschenberg collection Ganz, "Phase-out" of 1955, most of the "Combine Paintings" series was sold at auction in 1987 to a Scandinavian amateur and then to the famous English collector Charles Saatchi, which has not honoured its payment, before transferred in transaction to François Pinault, who himself sold it a few years at the Museum of Modern Art forsaid to be $ 30 million. The difference between the collection of a wealthy couple and the Ganz is that they could not ensure its sustainability. There is no book on properly distributed Ganz eye. In a few years, only auction fans will remember the remarkable choice of Victor Ganz. However, and although this was not intended, the collection has been an outstanding source of capital gains. According to Christie's experts, all together between 1941 and 1990 cost $ 2.5 million to the family. The only sale of 1997 reported a 82 times. One of the most spectacular investments of the century for a selective route, but without fault, in the art of the 20th century.

(1) "A life of collecting: Victor and Sally Ganz". Christie's. Edited by Michael Fitzgerald.

A look at: on YouTube, the interview with Ganz children before the auction of 1997: